


Burning Hearts and a Brand New Feeling

by robocryptid



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alcohol, Angst, Background Meicy, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Humor, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Psychic Abilities, Telepathy, honestly the tamest end of the dubcon spectrum but I figured better safe than sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:02:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24738934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robocryptid/pseuds/robocryptid
Summary: It’s just like he told Angela: the thoughts take up too muchspace.He’s staring at the coffee maker, but in his head he can see Hana smiling and Angela pushing a lock of hair behind her ear and Baptiste flashing his dimples when he laughs. He can hear Winston’s noisy chewing. He can hear a song again, one he can’t place.He leans his weight on his hands, fatigued by the onslaught of information. While he’s clenching his jaw and watching the steady drip of coffee into the carafe, he thinks of someone’s ass, fingers pressing into the meat of it. His face is already hot enough before he processes what that ass is wearing: jeans, light wash, with fraying on the back pockets, a brown leather belt in the loops, a red plaid shirt tucked into the waist.It’shisass. It’s his ass, and he’s not thinking of it like someone’s doing it to him — or he wasn’t, before now — but like he’s the one doing it, like it’s someone else’s point of view, someone else’s fantasy.What the hell?--Or: after an experimental treatment for his migraines, Jesse develops the ability to read minds. It gets weird.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 282
Kudos: 1050





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from Lennarang, who wanted Jesse suddenly finding out he can read minds. Title from David Hasselhoff song lyrics, because I can.
> 
> A note on the dubcon warning: honestly, it might be over-warning, but I'd rather tag and walk it back than not tag and surprise someone with something that might be uncomfortable.

#

Jesse wakes with a feeling he’s no longer used to: he feels rested. There’s no crick in his neck, no twinge in his shoulder, no ache in his back. It is — and he is not a man to use this word lightly —  _ awesome. _

It lasts all of the half hour it takes to brush his teeth, shower, dress, and waltz into the kitchen. He has such a spring in his step that Hana eyeballs him suspiciously from across the room. He catches Angela at the coffee pot, and he’s in a good enough mood not to comment on the clump of blonde hair stuck to her pillow-wrinkled cheek. 

“Good mornin’, doc.”

“Jesse.” She nods, face practically buried in her coffee mug. 

“You say you’re not a miracle worker, but I feel better than I have in years.”

_ —can’t even finish my first cup— _

“Pardon?” Jesse asks. 

Angela squints at him, then she shakes it off. “That’s great. You should come by my office. Later, of course.” She gives him a polite smile and waves her mug at him. 

_ — _ so  _ weird, does she know— _

“Sure,” is the only answer he can summon, and he lets her go on her way. He turns, mug in hand, and waves at Hana, who doesn’t even bother to look up from her phone.

* * *

There’s a mission briefing around nine. As always, it’s an hour long meeting that could be finished in twenty minutes, if only everyone could coordinate the effort it takes to quit wasting time. Jesse’s mind wanders until he’s thinking about a pretty redhead, then he spends the rest of the briefing distracted, trying to remember where he’s seen her before. He accidentally meets Lena’s eye, and she’s looking more through him than at him for the brief second before she snaps back to alertness, turning toward Winston with a plastered on smile. 

At the shooting range, he’s reloading when a snatch of song pops into his head. He can’t place it, but it’s far from his usual preferences — there’s a heavy bass like a pounding heart, high synthetic sounds weaving around it. When he fires again, it’s to the rhythm of that bass. When his half hour slot is over, he finds Baptiste waiting patiently outside the door for his turn.

Jesse’s gaze lands on the green bud in his ear, Lúcio’s frog logo gleaming from the widest visible part. Jesse didn’t know about those, but he shouldn’t be surprised; that guy would market anything as long as the money goes back home. Baptiste notices him and flashes a reflexive smile.

At lunch, he can’t focus. His mind is running a mile a minute, unwilling to latch onto any single thing. He keeps thinking about lutefisk and those round dumplings Mei likes, which is such a distracting combination that he can barely taste his own ham sandwich. It all comes to a head when he glances at Mei, who’s in rare form today with a low scoop neck shirt, and he thinks about what she would look like without the shirt altogether. 

Every bit of machinery in his brain comes to a screeching halt. He catches himself staring at Mei’s cleavage. Worse,  _ Mei  _ catches him staring at her cleavage. 

As shameless as folks have accused him of being, he isn’t, not really. He is definitely ashamed of this. Confused, too, but that’s only hovering in the background while the shame takes up the whole frame. 

Mei looks away. They don’t talk about it. Jesse leaves as fast as humanly possible, nearly crashing into Angela on his way out. 

Out in the hallway, he  _ does  _ crash into Hanzo, right as he rounds a corner. He reaches out to peel them apart and steady himself, his fingers closing just above Hanzo’s elbow. The clamor in his head suddenly crescendos, a wave of instinctual anger then panic, with a thrum of something primal and incomprehensible running beneath it. 

He jerks his hand away like Hanzo’s bare skin shocked him, and he rubs it against his jeans without thinking. Hanzo watches the motion like he can’t stop himself. 

_ —of course— _

“McCree,” Hanzo says with a tight voice. “My apologies.”

“Takes two to tango. Shoulda watched where I was goin’. Sorry.”

Hanzo nods stiffly then gives Jesse a wide berth as he continues on his way. 

* * *

“Are you experiencing any side effects?” Angela asks. She’s more alert than this morning, but the fatigue still shows in the tightness around her eyes. 

“Nothin’ I can think of.” 

She makes a note on her tablet. “I would like to run through a checklist, just in case.” 

Jesse almost nods, but he remembers he’s got to stay still. She has him strapped into another headpiece, a bizarre helmet of tubes and electrodes and gadgets Jesse can’t name. Images of his brain glow on a pair of holoscreens in front of him. 

She runs through some that don’t matter: weakness, fatigue, loss of appetite. He answers honestly that he has felt damn near perfect since the moment he woke up. 

Then she catches him off guard. “Mood swings?”

He isn’t sure how to answer. He woke up in a great mood, but he’s had those funny spikes of unaccountable feeling today. They never felt like  _ his _ though, and they were never particularly strong. They were weirdly distant, like something held them at bay. “No?” 

Angela raises an eyebrow and makes a note, but she doesn’t pursue it. “Difficulty concentrating?”

“Huh. Yeah.”

“Confusion?”

“Maybe some…” He doesn’t know if the… the  _ glitch  _ with Mei’s breasts counts, but he figures Angela’s the expert. She’ll weed out what doesn’t matter. 

There are other things he has no answer for, but that Angela says will be on the battery of questions every time he visits: loss of libido, increased sleeplessness, weight loss, weight gain. Then she comes back around. 

“Can you explain your difficulty concentrating?”

“Ah, just a lot of scattered thoughts all day. Seems like they’re comin’ from nowhere, just popping up?”

_ —intrusive thoughts— _

“I guess that’s what you’d call ’em.”

Angela stares for a second, then blinks. “What sort of thoughts?”

_ —anxiety, PTSD— _

He shakes his head. “Regular thoughts? Nothin’ bad, really. They’re just not… it’s like there’s  _ more  _ of them, and they’re loud and… take up too much space.” The description makes him feel like an idiot, but there’s no better way to explain himself. 

Angela’s a pro though. She nods and makes another note.

_ —ADHD? _

“Have you ever been tested for ADHD?”

“Do I look hyperactive to you?” Jesse scoffs.

She arches a sharp eyebrow, and he knows he’s stepped in it, questioning her authority like that. “I don’t think you know what that word means. I know you lose sleep. You are impulsive and regularly engage in high-risk behaviors. You are dependent on caffeine and nicotine. Now you say you cannot concentrate. It isn’t a diagnosis. It is only a question, with good rationale.”

“That ain’t why I lose sleep,” he mumbles, and she softens. “You asked if this was  _ new,  _ doc. It is. This is only about today.”

Naturally there’s not much more they can cover. It’s only been a day. She dismisses him with instructions to write down anything he thinks is different or strange. 

* * *

The next day, he wakes up with evidence that his libido is not, in fact, decreased. He lingers in bed to take care of the issue. By his estimation, he’s about halfway through when  _ it _ happens: a Hasselhoff song starts running through his head. He only even  _ recognizes  _ it because of Reinhardt, and while he could probably — if somewhat guiltily — still get himself off to thoughts of the old guy, he definitely can’t do it to the weird, retro strains of “True Survivor.” 

What Hasselhoff doesn’t kill, the lukewarm shower does. He’ll make it, though. Despite the frustration, his mood bounces back. Then breakfast happens. 

Hana and Brigitte and Lúcio sit at one table, Lena and Winston at another with Mei and Angela. Hanzo’s alone and picking at his food while he stares at his tablet. Genji enters shortly after Jesse does, with Baptiste at his heels. Most mornings, Jesse’s out before the crowd arrives, but it seems the Hasselhoff Incident threw off his timing. 

He likes his teammates. He’s not always sure about sticking with Overwatch, but he works with good people. That’s not the problem. The problem is that he feels better starting his day with some peace and quiet, and the moment he enters, there’s a din in his ears that seems wildly disproportionate to the number of people present. 

He can’t concentrate again. Thoughts flash by quicker than he can fully comprehend them, and it’s just like he told Angela: they take up too much  _ space. _ He moves on autopilot toward the coffee maker, then to wash it and ready it to make another pot when he finds it empty. He’s staring at the machine, but in his head he can see Hana smiling and Angela pushing a lock of hair behind her ear and Baptiste flashing his dimples when he laughs. He can hear Winston’s noisy chewing and get a closeup of his mouth, wetter than any person’s. He can hear a song again, one he can’t place. Somewhere in the din is that weirdly  _ primal  _ feeling; it’s almost in his bones instead of his mind, and there’s no thought to accompany it so much as a sense of its presence. 

He leans his weight on his hands, fatigued by the onslaught of information. While he’s clenching his jaw and watching the steady drip of coffee into the carafe, he thinks of someone’s  _ ass, _ fingers pressing into the meat of it. His face is already hot enough before he processes what that ass is wearing: jeans, light wash, with fraying on the back pockets, a brown leather belt in the loops, a red plaid shirt tucked into the waist. 

It’s  _ his  _ ass. It’s his ass, and he’s not thinking of it like someone’s doing it to him — or he wasn’t, before now — but like he’s the one doing it, like it’s someone else’s point of view, someone else’s fantasy.  _ What the hell? _

There’s no way to prove what he thinks is happening, and he might be nuts for even considering it. He tries to banish the thought, glaring at the carafe as he pours his coffee. 

_ —can’t believe she would— _

_ —after lunch we’ll— _

_ —beans, oats, need more butter soon— _

_ —OURS— _

The last thought startles him. Coffee sloshes over his hand, but it’s fortunately the prosthetic. He can clean that; at least he’s not burned. 

That thought, though. That wasn’t his. It can’t be his. It welled up from somewhere so unfamiliar to him that he’s surprised he understood it. It wasn’t even a word, not really, more like a loose interpretation of another  _ sense. _

But it wasn’t his. That’s what matters. 

He turns to look at the room, breath coming too quickly. There’s so much noise in his head it’s almost overwhelming. Angela can help him. She’ll know what to do. She won’t think he’s crazy — or not any crazier than she already does. 

“Mornin’, doc,” he says as naturally as possible. 

_ —what is it this time— _

Her lips don’t move, though, not until she says, in her too-early-for-this-shit voice, “Jesse.” Then her eyes go wide when she really  _ looks _ at his face. “Are you—”

_ —something wrong the treatment didn’t— _

“I think I need a word alone,” he says through an aching jaw. There’s a melody running on loop in his head, a song he’s never heard, and it’s the same three lines over and over. He sees his own face, dark with distress, and he knows someone, somewhere in this room, is giddy from talking to someone else. 

Angela nods with her eyes growing round, the strain of worry starting to show. “My office. Five minutes.” 

“Great.” It’s the best he can manage before he leaves. Most folks on base have trickled in by now, and the feedback from half of them watching him leave, layer on layer of his own face from different angles, of his own body moving, almost makes him nauseated. 

The farther down the hall he gets, the quieter the ruckus in his head becomes. He’s hovering between belief and denial, but that’s another piece of evidence in favor of his newfound ability to— He can’t even think the words. They make him feel like he’s losing his grip on reality. 

Angela doesn’t leave him waiting. He hears her footsteps down the hallway before he sees her, and he gets that weird, disorienting sense of looking at himself again. She lets them both in and waves a hand at the empty chair across from her desk. “You needed to see me?”

Jesse stares hard at her, trying to hear anything she’s not saying. She blinks back at him. Then he huffs. “This is gonna sound crazy.”

Her eyes glint. “Mm, yes, very uncharacteristic.”

“Hey,” he mutters. 

_ —worse than I thought— _

Her face goes more serious, concerned. “We’re friends, Jesse. And I’m your doctor. That means there are two good reasons to take you seriously, and to tell no one else.” 

He nods, but it still takes a moment to summon the nerve to say anything out loud. “I’m hearin’... things.”

“Things.”

“I told you about the intrusive thoughts yesterday? Those. But I don’t think they’re mine.” Angela squints. “I think they’re… other people’s?” He says the last in a rush, voice so quiet she leans forward over her desk to hear them. 

Then she sits back in her chair, staring at him. 

_ —hearing voices, never considered— _

“Not  _ hearing voices,” _ Jesse huffs, and she blinks again. “Thoughts. And… and pictures sometimes. Sounds. Can’t wait to find out I can get smells too next time someone’s stinkin’ up their bathroom.”

Angela’s lips twitch before she schools her face again. “If true—”

_ “If—” _

“I believe your experience is very real to you—”

“Angie, c’mon.”

She huffs, and he knows what he looks like to her, because he can see it clearly in his head: he looks like a ragged, pitiful, stubborn man. She’s stubborn too, though. She squares her shoulders then pins him with a look. “You are an astute observer of others. Have you considered that these  _ thoughts  _ are only your observations, and that your imagination has done the rest?”

“I’m not imagining it. You think I don’t know the difference between pickin’ up tells and hearing the explicit details?” She looks troubled. As frustrating as it is, Jesse can’t really blame her. She needs it to fit into a medical model, some diagnosis, something that’s been studied and measured before. Jesse sounds like a lunatic even to himself; he can’t fault her for struggling against her own understanding of the world. “I know what it sounds like, but you know this ain’t my usual brand of crazy.”

She stares, mouth pinched. Of course now when he would love to know what she’s thinking, he can’t hear a damn thing. She’s probably only humoring him, but she says slowly, “Can you give me some examples of these… instances?”

It’s a start. She doesn’t need to know about the Hasselhoff Incident, and some of the things sound like nonsense or coincidence, enough so that he’s second guessing himself before he starts. Then he smirks. “Yesterday, I think someone was staring at Mei’s boobs.”

“Don’t call them boobs, you sound like a twelve-year-old.”

“I would’ve called ’em giant knockers at twelve.”

“Jesse—”

“Would you prefer ‘her ample bosom’?”

“I take back what I said about our friendship.”

It gives Jesse a much needed laugh, and Angela’s puts him further at ease with its familiar fond exasperation. “Well, whatever you call ’em, there weren’t many of us in the room, so I’m guessin’ you were the one thinkin’ about her massive tatas.”

Angela stops laughing. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Flushes. “That’s... nothing you couldn’t have figured out without special insight.” She rubs her nose with a finger, eyes squeezing closed. 

She’s right. It’s not like he didn’t have a hunch before now. It strikes him that someone with shittier people skills would be more convincing in this scenario. He wracks his brain for a single compelling example, and he comes up with nothing. “I don’t know if I can control it, but maybe I could try now. On the fly. Tell you what you’re thinkin’ about.” He thinks about Hanzo yesterday, the skin to skin contact and that wave of feeling, and he reaches across the desk to put his hand over hers. “C’mon, humor me. Concentrate on somethin’. Somethin’ I wouldn’t know.”

Her mouth is firm with disbelief, but she nods and closes her eyes. They’re silent long enough that it grows uncomfortable. She peeks with one dubious eye before she squeezes them shut again. He can hear the ticking of the clock on the office wall. 

Then he grins and says, “You were cute as a button in that headgear. Did you spit when you talked, too?”

Angela sighs, and the image dissipates. “I told you fourteen was a rough age.”

* * *

Angela believing him doesn’t mean she has a solution, but it’s a good step. Now he’s got to meet with her daily to check in on any other developments. She’s not convinced his treatment is the cause, but it’s a better lead than anything else. She sends him away, muttering to herself about electrical impulses even before she closes the door. 

Two days ago, he was excited to be her guinea pig. He was looking forward to life without whole days spent recovering from Deadeye, and she’d get to fine tune the treatment on him before trying it out on folks with migraines of the less… unexplainable variety. It wasn’t curing cancer, but it could have helped a lot of people. 

Jesse normally helps people by ridding the world of the bad ones. Angela helps them by making the world better for everyone. It would’ve been nice to do it her way for once. 

Now she thinks she did something to fuck him up, and she’s not willing to try anything new until she’s carefully assessed every possible flaw in her first approach. As long as Jesse’s not in immediate danger, this is his new status quo. He doesn’t know if he’s more worried about being stuck like this or about losing his lead on a solution to the migraines. 

Either way, he deserves a smoke break. It doesn’t register in time that he sees the water in his mind before he can  _ actually  _ see it; he’s not alone. The whiff of smoke confirms it. He peeks around a corner to find Hanzo, who is already looking his way. Jesse wasn’t really aiming for stealth when he thought he was alone. 

Hanzo gives him a wry smile, a silent acknowledgment that Jesse has caught him indulging a vice. Quiet as he is on the outside, Hanzo’s nothing but chaos inside. 

_ —stupid not to expect him—place is a minefield—what do I— _

“Rough day?” Jesse asks as casually as he can, gesturing at the cigarette in Hanzo’s hand. It occurs to him for the first time that he must be doing some of the work here; he’s heard everything in English, but he doubts most of his teammates are thinking in _his_ first language. If the thoughts are translations, who knows if he’s even getting them right? Maybe he _is_ imagining it all and on the verge of some kind of break. 

Hanzo gives a noncommittal hum for his answer, seemingly as oblivious to Jesse’s turmoil as he is willing to pretend he’s not experiencing any, himself. He moves like he’s going to put out his cigarette even though he’s only halfway through. 

“Don’t gotta leave on my account. Outdoors is big enough for the both of us.” 

Hanzo pauses and looks him over, brow knit with suspicion. Jesse gets that disorienting sense of seeing himself again. It’s a weird boost to the ego; he doesn’t  _ look  _ like he’s suffering a total shift in his worldview and everything he believes to be impossible. Hanzo still doesn’t answer, but he stays. 

_ —say something? _

“How is your day?” Hanzo asks haltingly, then glances at him. “You asked if mine was rough.” He says it like he needs an excuse to make perfectly normal small talk.

“Just a weird one.” 

Hanzo nods and falls silent again. His thoughts are no longer shaping into words, but Jesse can still read the general feeling of discomfort and uncertainty. Hanzo has always projected a sense that he gives not a single fuck what anyone here thinks — confident to a fault, assertive when he has something to say, prefers his own company to anyone else’s. If his body language told the whole story, Jesse might still believe that. But the turmoil echoing in Jesse’s mind says Hanzo has no idea how to talk to him, that he’s anxious. Jesse would call it  _ shy,  _ but he can’t quite wrap his head around that one. 

“Huh.” He only realizes he made the noise when Hanzo glances at him. Jesse clears his throat a half second too late to convince anybody that’s what the first sound was. He fumbles for anything to fill the silence that he has suddenly made awkward. “What time do you usually hit the shooting range?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“That’s you? Should’ve figured.” The curiosity in Hanzo’s head matches the body language this time. “Someone keeps threatening my high score. Athena didn’t show me the names, just the time blocks.”

He’s hit by a tiny burst of pride. “I assure you if it were more than a simulation, I would have beaten you already.” 

Jesse smirks. “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?”

Now a flash of something Jesse doesn’t have a name for. He thinks it means Hanzo liked the implicit challenge, though. It’s reflected in the faint curve of his mouth. There’s also something else happening, like a vibration so low Jesse can feel it in his bones, his chest. It takes him a moment to realize that’s in his head too. 

Hanzo shifts, cigarette perched between his lips while he rubs at his tattooed wrist. His left hand flexes. 

_ —stop— _

“Huh,” Jesse says again. Hanzo stiffens, like he’s only now aware of what he’s been doing, and Jesse changes the subject altogether. “You been down to the city yet?” Hanzo’s brow furrows. “Down the Rock.”

“Ah. No, I have not made the time.”

“Should try one of the markets. They can get intense. There’s this little bakery down there—” Jesse stops, grinning as he gets the image of some kind of round pastry with a large green swirl on top. “Ah, but you wouldn’t care about that, I’m sure. Look like you don’t eat a lotta sweets.” 

Hanzo’s looking at him suspiciously again like he knows he’s being teased. “I have been known to indulge occasionally,” he says carefully.

“What’s your favorite, then? Lemme guess, you’re a matcha kinda guy.”

Hanzo blinks and then flushes as he admits, “Not  _ only _ that, but… yes.”

Jesse’s grin only gets wider. Maybe this thing isn’t so bad if it means he can now crack the toughest nut on base. 

* * *

“Can you tune it out?” Angie’s got her tablet out again, running through a questionnaire she whipped up. 

“Sometimes?” She raises an eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate. It’s been a week of this now. A week of waking up to Reinhardt’s morning Hasselhoff, a week of eating breakfast to the background noise of Hana agonizing over her crush, a week of reluctant curiosity over who is actually fucking whom in the awkward dance Genji, Lúcio and Baptiste are doing around each other, a week of Lena pining for her girlfriend when her mind wanders. He’s heard Winston’s methodical recitation of old Overwatch files, tactics used by Morrison, Reyes and Amari; that, at least, has had positive effects, insofar as it forced Jesse to respect that Winston’s putting as much effort into learning military strategy as he does into any other research. He can hear Brigitte and Torbjörn thinking almost in synchronization when they get deep into engineering problems, then mentally clashing when it comes to most other things. 

He’s heard the songs stuck in people’s heads, the grocery and to-do lists they mentally compile, the crushes and rivalries they harbor. It’s an exercise in making sense of sheer chaos, in knowing too much about the things people like to keep inside. More than any of the rest, though, it’s been experiencing too much of the almost painful banality of everyone’s inner lifeworld. Never before has Jesse been forced to confront precisely how boring ninety percent of a person’s daily thoughts are, including his own. 

“Sometimes,” he repeats, trying to focus. “I think I could get better at it.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“It’s like… ignoring a headache or hunger. If you focus enough on something else, you can forget for a while, but other times there’s nothin’ you can do.”

Angela nods and makes a note. “What does it feel like to hear everything?”

“Exhausting. I’m worn out by supper time.”

“Physically as well?”

“No. Just too tired to pay attention or even try blockin’ it out any more.”

“Do you think you could become more resilient with time?”

He has to pause there. “Like a muscle I’m learnin’ to exercise?” She nods, although the question was rhetorical, just a way to help him organize his thoughts. “Maybe. But I… sometimes I worry it’ll always be like this, and that makes it hard to say.” 

Her brow furrows, and he can sense her concern. The effect almost feels doubled, because it’s not like he can’t see it all over her face too. She goes through more questions that seem repetitive to him, even if she’s clearly searching for  _ something _ he can’t quite figure out. Then she sighs. 

“I think we should discuss the… ethics of your newfound ability.” Jesse snorts, and she levels one of her  _ looks  _ at him. “I’m serious. You have access to knowledge you should not have. Aren’t you worried about handling it responsibly?”

“I know how to keep people’s secrets, Angie. I was in black ops.”

“Yes, where you were trained to use many of those secrets as tools. Weapons. It is worth a discussion.” He can’t argue with her there. She squares her shoulders and her face goes harder. “Have you  _ used _ any of the things you have learned about your teammates?” 

He’s about to say no when he remembers baiting Hanzo about his sweet tooth. “Not for anything bad,” he says, suddenly defensive. 

Angela takes a deep breath. They’re going to be here a long time. 

* * *

There’s a silver lining. He should probably be getting headaches, as mentally exhausted as he’s been, but Angela’s migraine treatment has worked on that front. He’s tired from it all, but there’s no pain. 

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want a smoke and a stiff drink, though. He takes both outside with him. He can see the boats before he sees them again; Hanzo’s here. He startles when Jesse rounds the corner. 

_ —too quiet for  _ spurs, _ let down my guard, stupid— _

Jesse’s torn between a proud grin and concern over Hanzo’s instinct toward self-flagellation. He doesn’t mention either. Instead he shakes his flask at Hanzo. “Want some? Be nice not to drink alone.”

It’s disorienting again, watching himself take a swig then lodge his cigar between his lips. Distantly he wonders if his mouth is really  _ that  _ obscene. When he’s finished lighting the cigar, he rubs the back of his hand over his lips self-consciously. By the time he looks over again, Hanzo’s staring at the mouth of the flask, looking like it might bite him. 

With a quick glance at Jesse and a flash of a thought gone too quickly to read, Hanzo drinks. It’s a bigger sip than Jesse would have expected, Hanzo’s chin tipped up and neck stretched, Adam’s apple bobbing in a way that makes Jesse swallow in response. It’s maybe not even a  _ sip _ at all, but he’s not going to judge him for it. Hanzo’s radiating so much stress that it will probably do him some good. 

Jesse feels and sees himself smile at the same time. He’s not as vain as he likes to project, but clearly the drink and the fresh air are already working wonders if he looks that good. The weird, almost subvocal rumbling is back, a current running below the surface. Hanzo’s left fist clenches, the muscle of his forearm flexing. Jesse swallows again.

“What inspired you to drink today?” Hanzo asks. It’s stiff again, but he’s also initiating a conversation all on his own. Angie can go on all she likes about Jesse’s  _ ethical obligations, _ but he refuses to regret using the power to nudge Hanzo into opening up. 

* * *

Someone’s mouth is on him, warm and wet, downright heavenly. His hips move restlessly, and it’s not just the mouth, it’s a hand too, working slowly enough that it’s almost teasing. Except none of these things are really  _ his; _ they’re someone else’s, and Jesse’s just along for the ride. 

He doesn’t know what to do here. This was not a part of his talk with Angie. He also really doesn’t want to think about her right now. 

It has to be pre-dawn, because the light coming through the window is gray, and because there’s no Hasselhoff yet. He can’t blame whoever’s starting their morning off this way, but he  _ does  _ wish he’d learned to block things out by now. 

There’s a funny pang of guilt that echoes his own, like someone is anxious about their jerkoff fantasy. His own mind races, unsure where to even begin. He woke up to this; it’s not like it’s his  _ fault. _ Now he’s actively turned on and unsure he’s allowed to be, given the context. Nobody else would know, but  _ he _ would, and then he’d have to wonder which of his teammates he’d gotten off with — gotten off  _ to, _ because it’s not like they’re a deliberate, willing participant. 

It’s a lot weirder than just jerking off to somebody he knows. It’s like… like voyeurism. Except it’s inside his head, and his body’s reacting like it’s  _ his _ fantasy, and maybe it is  _ now,  _ at least a little bit. 

He shoves his pillow over his face like that will make it stop, squeezing it so tightly with both arms that it’s hard to breathe. In his head, he pinches his own nipple, scratches the other hand through the hair around his cock, then grips it again. It’s wet at the tip, and the slick glide of his hand through it makes the fantasy of the mouth easier to retrieve. The lips are pink and soft, and the tongue licks along a fat vein and under the glans. The crown of his dick slips along the smooth palate and effortlessly back. 

Jesse’s on fire, sweat beading along his skin, and he no longer knows if it’s him or the mental intruder or both of them. His hips jerk into the imagined mouth, into the hand he can almost, almost feel on him. Another image weaves in, a hand tangled in the softest possible hair, holding someone’s head still as he thrusts into their mouth, down their throat, and at the same time, his grip on his cock tightens, thumb circling the hot head, slippery with precome. 

His nerves are shot, hips twitching as he tries to contain himself. Whoever’s in his head has given up on controlling anything, fucking into their fist with abandon, into the fantasy mouth, lips swollen and warm and perfect. There’s an image, a flash of eyes and hair. It’s  _ Jesse’s _ mouth. 

Superimposed over all the rest, over the hand and the mouth on his cock, over the touch running from chest to balls and back, Jesse can now feel the weight of someone’s cock on his tongue, the feel of it pushing past his lips and into his throat, and he knows this one is entirely his and still entirely out of his control. The pressure builds and builds, muscles cramping with the effort it takes not to simply hump the air. His underwear is soaked through over the head of his cock, slipping and catching with the restless shifting of his hips. He can feel it in his mind too, how close this other person is, how they’re trembling, twitching, until they stop altogether as their orgasm washes over them, over Jesse too, and he comes untouched, to someone else’s fantasy of fucking his mouth. 

_ Holy shit. _

He breathes hard into the pillow, face hot and muscles warm and loose now. He drifts for a minute before his new morning routine begins again. Here comes the Hasselhoff soundtrack. 

In the shower, several things occur to him. First, he realizes that Reinhardt is in the neighboring room. Of  _ course  _ Jesse can hear his bizarre morning routine, because he’s closer than anyone else. This means that second, the likelihood that the fantasy was Reinhardt’s has just increased by a lot. He doesn’t know how to feel about that; he also doesn’t know that it means anything in particular. Jesse’s fantasized about plenty of men he wouldn’t  _ really  _ sleep with. Sometimes they pop into his head, unannounced and unexpected, and he just has to roll with it. But it’s one thing to know in a vague sense that someone somewhere has probably gotten off to thinking about him; it’s another thing altogether to know it for certain, and in explicit detail. 

Third, and perhaps most upsettingly, it means that it might happen again. Once was fine. He likes new experiences, and that one was mighty intense. He’s not sure he cares to risk it happening somewhere outside his bedroom, though. It introduces a whole new complication.


	2. Chapter 2

He likes to think he’s getting used to it, as much as anybody can get used to knowing what’s going on in someone else’s head. He now knows at least three groups of people who all need to sit down and talk with each other, because the mutual pining escalated rapidly from sort of funny to unbearable in a matter of days. Angie is in one of these groups; if she and Mei don’t cut it out soon, Jesse’s tempted to stage an intervention. He really doesn’t want to have to do that, not least because he doesn’t think Mei wants to spend time alone with him after Angela’s borderline reverence got him caught staring again. 

He still gets the occasional flashes from folks looking at him. _Someone_ was eyeing his thighs and crotch at breakfast, which he would like to blame on his nicely broken-in jeans. It could have been anybody. Lots of people _look_ and it doesn’t necessarily mean something.

He might believe those things if he weren’t still sharing in someone else’s masturbation sessions. He hasn’t seen his own face again, but it’s hard to forget even once. It’s also hard to forget that someone, somewhere on this base has been getting him off without knowing it. He’s tried to block it out, avoided touching himself, and it doesn’t matter. It’s like having a wet dream, except he’s awake enough to feel weird as hell about it. 

The unexpected consolation for all this mess is that he’s been getting to know Hanzo better. It was a point of pride at first, and maybe curiosity, but it turned out to be enjoyable enough. He doesn’t know why that is, but he’s not about to let his surprise subtract from the experience. He finds Hanzo out on the cliff again; if he’s been smoking this time, he put it out a while ago, because Jesse can’t smell anything but the sea air. 

Jesse drops to the ground next to him, then he reaches over and plops the paper bag right onto Hanzo’s lap. A series of thoughts flit by, too unformed for Jesse to catch, then Hanzo glances his way, suspicion and surprise written all over his face. The vision Jesse gets of himself is vaguely embarrassing; he looks like he’s up to no good, or worse, like he’s flirting, his eyes sparkling with mischief and cheeks flushed from his recent brisk walk. He ducks his head, moving to adjust his hat before he realizes he’s not wearing it. 

“Go on, open it.”

Hanzo’s face doesn’t get less suspicious, but he does what Jesse tells him to. The bag crinkles in surround sound, then Hanzo is smiling. To Jesse, the buns look alright. They’re the size of his fist, a nice enough pastry with a dull green swirl decorating the top. The vision he gets from Hanzo is different; the crust is glossier, the green brighter, like a food artist came in to doll it up for a commercial. 

Jesse can’t totally suppress the surprised sound he makes at the discovery, but Hanzo doesn’t seem to notice it. Instead he has a tentative smile for Jesse, who smiles back reflexively and is almost startled by the whiteness of his own teeth, the smooth, uniform pinkness of the lips he knows are kind of chapped, the depth of the dimples he’s not sure he actually has. 

His chest feels strange and warm. He clears his throat. “Had to go into town today. Saw those and thought you might like ’em.”

“I do. Thank you.” Hanzo says it stiffly, and he’s not looking at Jesse any more. His thoughts aren’t any help either, zipping from one thing to another without ever really landing. But the warm feeling seems too intense to be Jesse’s alone, and that weird primal hum has started up again.

“It was nothin’.” Before, it was an understatement. This is an outright lie. Jesse went to four different bakeries to hunt down the buns, because once the idea occurred to him, he couldn’t let up until he found them. 

Hanzo holds out the bag to share, and Jesse politely takes a bun. The matcha filling is almost dense, nearly a similar texture to the fluffy bread, and not as sweet as he expected. “Not half bad,” he says, and Hanzo only smiles carefully, but he might as well be beaming for all the genuine, uncomplicated happiness bouncing inside Jesse’s skull. It’s only a flash before it’s gone, but it leaves him reeling so hard that he doesn’t notice Hanzo’s talking right away. “Pardon?”

“I asked if you have a favorite treat. I would like to repay you.”

Jesse snorts. “You don’t gotta do that.”

He gets the impression Hanzo doesn’t believe him at all, or maybe he simply doesn’t care. “Perhaps not. I would still like to know.” 

Jesse doesn’t have to develop precognition to know that whatever he answers, he’s soon going to get it whether he wants it or not. There’s no point in arguing over it. “I’m not picky,” he tries instead. Hanzo glances away, plucking at a piece of his matcha bun. He doesn’t feel offended, but Jesse can’t put a name to what it is more precisely than that. It’s like Hanzo thinks of it as a rejection. It’s frustrating, because it was only a moment ago that Jesse’s head was bursting with that joy, and it feels awful to be the reason it’s fizzling out. “I like cinnamon though. Cinnamon anything, just about. And you can’t ever go wrong with a nice apple pie.”

It was the right call. “I should have guessed about the apple pie.” Jesse doesn’t have to look to know Hanzo’s smiling again; the warmth of it is buzzing in his mind. 

* * *

Jesse wakes up early. He would know what that means even if he weren’t achingly hard already. There is a fading impression of a mouth brushing his, of hands skimming the length of his torso. This one isn’t as creative as he knows they can get. It’s straightforward, just enough touching and half-formed twists of thought to get them both through it. 

He refuses to touch himself. It’s the principle of the thing. At least then he can say he isn’t taking advantage of the situation. 

He gets off anyway, like he always does. It’s part of his routine, which is both strange and comforting. He has not forgotten his fear that this will happen at a time when it’s deeply inconvenient. At least he can live with it if it remains predictable. 

These are his mornings, the new normal. If he wakes early, he gets to partake in somebody’s fantasy. He doesn’t masturbate. He orgasms anyway. Whether he wakes early or not, he listens to Hasselhoff. He brushes his teeth. He takes a shower. 

Breakfast means coffee. Two eggs, fried, runny yolks. Two slices of toast. Two pieces of sausage. Orange juice. Vitamins if he knows Angela’s watching. Go back to make more if he’s still feeling hungry. Maybe poke at some of the fruit and choose not to eat anything else after all. All the while, Hana will mope over her phone, overanalyzing every text message she exchanged with Brigitte the day before. She’s hunting for clues in statements that are blatantly obvious to Jesse; he wants to lock them in a room until they figure it out. 

After breakfast, there’s usually a meeting. He always found them tedious, if necessary. Now, he can barely stand them. A meeting means a bunch of people clustered together. It means too much noise in his head, too many sights and sounds to focus on. 

When he enters this morning, he sits closest to Echo. Whatever cruel piece of the cosmos did this to him, he’s grateful for the small mercy of leaving out omnics. Humans — and sentient gorillas, apparently — are working on his wavelength, but omnics are omnics like they’ve always been. Some are assholes, some make no sense to him, and some are damn fine company, but not one of them puts out thoughts he can read. Echo sounds like nothing but the quiet hum of the high tech gizmos that keep her going. She’s always been pleasant to be around, but he especially appreciates her these days, when the silence of her thoughts is something he can no longer take for granted. With everyone crowding around the conference table, it won’t matter all that much, but her presence is still comforting. 

The more people that arrive, the more crowded the inside of his head grows. He gets layered images of Winston, all at slightly different angles. He can see the blueprints on Torbjörn’s tablet that he’s studying instead of listening. He can pinpoint the precise moment Lena starts to drift off into some daydream, because he can see her girlfriend in his head, as usual. Someone else is reciting their grocery list again. 

He has to put his stylus down when he realizes someone’s watching him chew on it. That doesn’t make them stop looking, though. The gaze is so focused it feels like a touch, like the brush of feather light fingers along his jawline, down his throat to the open collar of his shirt. They imagine smoothing the wrinkling of his brow, which makes him draw it tighter. They picture pushing his hair from his face, and he can feel his cheeks begin to burn. The touch rounds his ear, brushes the lobe, and it’s followed by their mouth.

Jesse coughs, and his mind lights up with more images of himself as several heads swivel his way. “Sorry,” he mutters from behind his hand. At least it banishes the fantasy too. 

* * *

“Are you feeling any different today?”

Jesse stretches his legs out, balancing most of the weight on his hands so he can keep still for Angela’s machine. “Nothin’ new.”

She runs through the usual questions about fatigue and loss of appetite, and his answers are the same as always. It’s tiresome for them both, and he can’t resent her for being thorough about her job, but he sort of wants to unleash the frustration somewhere. 

“You seem agitated,” she says before he can make any snippy comments. 

“You readin’ minds now too?” The joke doesn’t land as softly as it should. 

“I’m reading the twenty years I have known you,” she says, not unkindly. It unravels some of his tension, as it’s probably intended to do. “Is there something you need to talk about? With your friend, perhaps, not your doctor?” Angela’s the only person he can talk to about any of this, but he still hasn’t mentioned the masturbatory fantasies, figuring that’s more TMI than vital intelligence. He’s not sure he feels like talking about today’s meeting, either, or how he can’t stop thinking about it. Eventually he grunts, and she lets it go. Her hands are chilly when they bump his face, releasing him from the stupid helmet. “Well, you know how to find me, and you know my taste in whiskey,” she says with a shrug. It’s refreshing, at least, to realize that both the offer to talk and her nonchalance about his rejection of it are as earnest as they seem. 

It’s disarming enough that he’s able to summon a smile while he changes the subject. “I think you oughta ask her on a date.”

Angela glances up from where she’s carefully packing away all the tubes and wires. “Is this you using your abilities to interfere?” she asks cautiously. Her mind is blank, a quiet hum of _nothing,_ which is an unnerving skill she has been working on for the past few days. 

“Maybe.” 

“I thought we agreed—”

“We didn’t agree. You _told me_ not to use anything I learn.” Her mouth pinches, and he waves it off before she can argue back. “It’s good advice, and I’m takin’ it to heart. But we also talked about how maybe interfering does more good than harm sometimes. So I’m givin’ you advice too: quit worryin’ and just ask.”

“Can you predict the future now as well, and tell me that my friendship with her will not be altered if something goes wrong?” 

Jesse sighs. “No, but I can tell you you’re both nice people who give a shit about other people’s needs. Seems like that’s a good start for workin’ any problems out. You deserve to enjoy yourself, Angie. I’m not telling you anything inside her head, I’m just sayin’ you should ask. If it helps, it’s the same thing I’d tell you even if I didn’t have some kind of edge.” 

She takes a breath and nods. “We will see.”

He figures it’s the best he’s going to get out of her. “Good enough. Please don’t make me regret helpin’ you find out what her tits actually look like.”

Angela snorts and promises to keep working on blocking him out, then she shoos him out of her office. She cites having more work to do, but her face is pink and she’s unguarded enough that he knows she’s mentally composing a message to Mei.

* * *

Jesse is not eavesdropping. Not on purpose, anyway. It isn’t his fault that he still has lunch to finish when the bundle of free-flying emotions hits him. 

Baptiste’s back is to Jesse, but he can see his smile anyway. He can see the biceps Genji can’t stop looking at, and he can hear snatches of bad jokes both in his head and with his actual ears. It would all be part of his new normal, something he’s slowly coming to grips with, except for this: Baptiste laughs at his own bad joke, grinning huge and right at Genji, and the unearthly rumbling begins. It’s still difficult to make sense of, difficult to find the source of, but this time Jesse is reminded of nothing so much as a cat _purring._

A suspicion that’s been brewing in his subconscious leaps suddenly to the fore. He waits until Baptiste stands, and he suffers the flood of nervous joy when he touches Genji’s shoulder. As soon as Baptiste leaves, Jesse takes his lunch and sits across from Genji. His own face looks somehow both intent and up to no good, so he tries to make it softer for Genji’s sake. 

“Hey buddy,” he says. A wave of instant suspicion hits him. Wrong approach, he supposes. 

“McCree,” Genji answers flatly. 

“I got a weird question for you.”

Genji relaxes, like Jesse confessing some of his motive is all he needed. “Go on.”

“Your dragon talks to you, right?”

“More or less.”

“You understand her though?”

“Yes.”

“How?” Genji narrows his eyes at him. It’s not like they’ve never had a conversation like this before, but Jesse’s not ready to reveal to anyone but Angela what he’s dealing with here. “I mean, does she use, you know, _words,_ or is it something else?” 

Now he’s got Genji’s attention, though. His head tilts, then he says, “I… feel it? And then I know?”

“But she does let you know how she’s feelin’?”

Genji laughs quietly. “All the time. Her feelings are far more reliable than expecting her to _say_ something people would understand.” 

“Huh.” 

* * *

With Angela’s blessing, he leaves for the mission as planned shortly after lunch. It’s a simple excursion, overseeing the arrival of an omnic rights activist for a meeting in Spain. They, along with more standard private security, escort Dr. Faty from the airport to the French Embassy. After that, Jesse gets to hang around Madrid for a while with Lena and Lúcio, who both somehow manage to go unaccosted for their fame by virtue of nothing more than matching aviator sunglasses. 

Lena’s nervous, of course. The last time she had a mission like this, Mondatta was assassinated anyway. She’s always worn her heart on her sleeve, about that and everything else, so Jesse doesn’t think he’s violating any guidelines by asking her if she’s doing alright. She gives him a watery smile and nods, radiating gratitude that he even asked. He tries not to hold it against her that she’s surprised he bothered. 

Lúcio’s Spanish is alright. Between him and Jesse, they manage to find her a shop that sells tiny souvenir spoons, which Emily’s grandparents collect. They have a whole separate set devoted to their semi-famous, almost-sort-of-granddaughter-in-law’s world travels. That and the stories Lena shares about them are disgustingly cute, and talking about it cuts through the homesickness she carries with her constantly. 

Lúcio finds an “I went to Spain and all I got was this stupid mug” coffee mug for Baptiste, and he cackles when Jesse points out a goofy-looking dragon that alleges to be made of hand blown glass. It has to be from a factory, given the price, but the craftsmanship does lean more toward handmade. Maybe handmade by someone’s small child. Lúcio loves it. 

“Nobody you’re shopping for?” he asks, and Jesse shrugs. Angie hates clutter. He eyes a glass snowflake, but he and Mei are in a weird place, what with all the accidental staring at her breasts. Given that the snowflake is only marginally better crafted than the dragon, he’s not sure it’s a great start for working his way back into her good graces, or that it would be taken the right way. The constant ogling is probably going to mangle that message. 

He does find a tiny beer stein and an ugly ceramic bunny for Reinhardt and Hana, respectively. At the checkout counter, there is a bracelet made of fat plastic beads, each of them engraved with sloppy kanji that Jesse’s limited grasp of the language tells him is almost definitely nonsense. He adds it to his haul on a whim, figuring Hanzo will get a kick out of either the bracelet itself or thinking Jesse doesn’t know how dumb it is. 

They scope out the embassy under the guise of further tourist silliness, and by the time evening falls, it’s time to get back to the escort. There are no signs of trouble until Dr. Faty leaves the embassy. One of her security team adjusts his weight under Jesse’s stare. 

_—kilometers until the hotel—across the street he—for traffic—_

“Tracer,” Jesse mutters under his breath, under the guise of offering her a piece of gum. “I smell a rat.”

They shut it down quickly, and the coward squeals the whole plan in under five minutes, thanks to Jesse’s ability to mine his thoughts for the threats most likely to work. It takes not much more effort than that to catch his cohorts. Dr. Faty gets to the airport at the scheduled time and onto a flight safe from any further interference, to the best of Jesse’s knowledge. If Lena or Lúcio are surprised by how easily Jesse knew who to go for, they don’t express it. Instead he’s left flattered that they so readily trusted he was making the right call. He’s also got a real reason to appreciate his newfound talent. 

* * *

They’re home within forty-eight hours of embarking. He finds Hanzo waiting outside in the usual place, and he seems weirdly antsy from the feel of it. Anticipatory. It’s how Jesse realizes they’ve fallen into a pattern; he almost always takes a break around now. 

When his boot crunches on the rock, there’s a shiver like Hanzo’s nerves jumped. He’s so tightly wound inside that it is weird as hell to see the wry half-smile suggesting he’s not the least bit bothered. Jesse’s grown used to feeling guilty over the things his ability tells him about people, but the clash between Hanzo’s interior and exterior world never fails to highlight how intrusive it really is. 

“Fancy meetin’ you here.”

Hanzo doesn’t bother with a greeting. Instead he shoves a small box at Jesse, held out with both hands. “I visited the market. This is for you.” It’s accompanied by a charming memory of Hanzo painstakingly picking out several pastries, visibly trying the worker’s patience as he rejects two for being too ugly. Jesse pretends to be surprised when he opens the box to find several nearly-perfect pastries inside. There are profiteroles dusted with cinnamon, and two more that he knows from Hanzo’s thoughts are apple turnovers, or something like it. “They did not have apple pie,” Hanzo says even as Jesse picks one up. 

“Thank you.” Jesse smiles, and he’s almost startled by the warmth expanding inside him. He doesn’t even know if it’s his or Hanzo’s feeling, but he is once again impressed by his own great smile, and he can feel the presence of what he now thinks are Hanzo’s dragons. “You’re gonna help me eat some of this, right?”

He splits the turnover and shoves one half at Hanzo, then he picks at his own piece. It’s flaky on the outside and gooey within, tart apple mixed with almost-too-sweet cinnamon and spice. He can tell Hanzo likes it too, although these pastries never got the funny glow up the matcha buns received when viewed through Hanzo’s eyes. Something about that thought sticks in Jesse’s head, but it’s hard to identify why when he’s busy enjoying himself. 

Then some of the apple filling sticks to his thumb. He pops the end into his mouth and sucks it clean. It’s nothing, a thoughtless gesture on his end. But he’s hit with the next image as if by force, a painful gut-punch of a vision, except that all he’s doing in it is sealing his mouth around the end of his thumb. It’s so small, and it’s also _obscene._

When he glances up, their eyes meet, and he knows the red stain in Hanzo’s cheeks for what it is. Jesse’s pulse is galloping so fast he can feel the vein in the side of his neck pumping. 

He shoves the rest of the pastry unceremoniously into his mouth, nearly choking on it before he manages to speak around it. “I gotta go. I just remembered I left— Thank you so much for this. I’ll see you around.” Jesse flees, and Hanzo’s thoughts follow him until he’s too far away to sense them any longer, panic giving way to a mix of disappointment and dim resignation that makes Jesse feel like a jackass.

He knows from his meetings with Angela that she often sees him as tired, frustrated, worn down; in his best light he might look mischievous or have a friendly enough smile. It has never occurred to him to think of those as anything but objective images. He passes Hana and Lúcio in the hallway, and it only confirms his hunch. Hana sees him walk by looking harried, hunched and scurrying with his hair unkempt. Lúcio sees him like he thinks Jesse’s got somewhere to be, with determination in his walk. He also sees a ruggedly handsome old man — which is, by the way, a weird amalgam of flattering and insulting when Jesse knows what he knows about Lúcio’s feelings toward Genji and Baptiste, both of whom are _barely_ younger than Jesse. Maybe he ought to do something with the beard.

Hanzo doesn’t seem to mind his beard, though. Hanzo doesn’t seem to mind his _anything._ When Hanzo looks at him, it’s not the same man Jesse sees in the mirror. 

He remembers Ana laughing as she scrubbed the heavy makeup from her face after an interview. He remembers how she and Jack looked on a holoscreen, two good-looking people rendered flawless nearly to the point of unrecognizability by virtue of thick makeup and flattering camera angles. He’s seen the same for Hana when she has to make a public appearance, and Lúcio in his photo shoots. Hanzo’s mind seems to do the same thing to Jesse. It makes him up and grooms him just right, like he’s going to play himself in a movie. 

When Jesse gets to his room, he’s paying attention this time. He’s been walking this hall since he arrived in Gibraltar, passing by Reinhardt’s door every time he comes or goes, without thinking about who’s farther down, right where the hall dead-ends shortly past Jesse’s room. He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse knowing that it’s _probably_ been Hanzo every time he’s gotten the fantasies projected into his head in the wee hours of the morning, and doesn’t that just figure? Of course Hanzo would even masturbate on a schedule. 

Okay. So Hanzo thinks he’s hot. Hanzo might even want to fuck him, if given the opportunity. 

Now that Jesse’s alone in his room and not staggered by the brain-warping sense of attraction to a shinier, _prettier_ version of himself, he realizes it’s not actually crazy. If Hanzo’s attracted to men and his brother’s running around with Baptiste and Lúcio — or interested in them, or anything else that might make Hanzo keep his distance — then that leaves Jesse and Reinhardt as the only eligible bachelors around. It’s a fifty-fifty shot before accounting for Hanzo’s more specific preferences. 

Maybe it’s not even exclusively Jesse. Maybe Hanzo looks at Reinhardt like that too. Reinhardt would have looked great on the cover of a romance novel in his heyday. Hell, he still would, albeit for a more niche audience these days. Maybe Hanzo _does_ think of Lúcio and Baptiste that way, but he’s keeping it better suppressed for Genji’s sake. Maybe Hanzo likes more than just men, and he’s running around this base horny for two-thirds of its inhabitants. 

Even if it _is_ exclusively Jesse, there’s no point jumping to conclusions. Physical attraction could mean a lot of things. It could have just been the one time, a normal response to someone vaguely in the realm of Hanzo’s type doing something nice for him. Jesse’s memory is pretty good, though; with the clarity of hindsight, he’s pretty sure it’s _not_ the first time. But even multiple times don’t indicate Hanzo taking an _active_ interest, or having any desire to act on that interest, or attaching some sort of meaning to that interest beyond the purely sexual.

It’s not like Jesse’s never given it a thought, or several thoughts, or filed things away for later, like that time while Hanzo was still insisting on wearing his traditional getup instead of proper body armor and Jesse was forced to watch as rain stuck his hair to his face until he let it down to finger comb it back into place, and all the while, rainwater streamed down his glistening, half naked torso. Jesse has definitely revisited that one a few times. 

So it’s flattering, really, to know Hanzo finds him attractive, and he knows that it doesn’t have to hold some particular meaning. But he hasn’t forgotten the meeting the other day, someone watching him, thinking about touching him in ways that felt decidedly _not_ purely sexual. 

He doesn’t know if it’s better to assume that it was Hanzo then too or that there’s more than one person on this small base with a thing for him. Both options feel conceited in their own ways, like he’s blowing smoke up his own ass. Both options are sort of embarrassing to consider. 

Regardless, what’s important is deciding what to _do_ with the information. According to the general rules he and Angela established, the answer is _do nothing._ Even after their talks about minimizing harm and maximizing helpfulness, he’s pretty sure she didn’t mean he should be helping Hanzo by offering to do at least one of the things Hanzo’s fantasized about. It’s not like he’d feel great about acting on knowledge he never should have had, anyway. He thinks he gets Angie’s hesitance to take his advice about Mei now, and he was a _lot_ more sure about their feelings for each other than he is about this. 

So. Do nothing. He can handle that. 

If he has to do nothing, then it’s probably also best not to do anything misleading. Like seeking him out just to talk or sharing alcohol or bringing him one of his favorite foods or buying him souvenirs, even as a joke. Jesse scrubs a hand over his face.


	3. Chapter 3

Jesse reassesses his routine, and he manages to throw it off by about ten minutes. It’s different enough to keep him away from Hanzo without arousing suspicion that he’s actively trying _not_ to run into him. He runs into him anyway, but only once and only as Hanzo’s already leaving. Jesse’s left with the impression Hanzo thinks that it’s at least plausible it’s only bad timing. There are no hard feelings anyway, which makes Jesse feel like less of an asshole. 

The outside breaks were the only thing they shared, so the rest is a simple matter of never being alone with him, which is no different than before. Well, mostly no different. The one thing that has changed is that even when everyone’s together, Jesse can somehow always pick out Hanzo’s thoughts in the crowd, like he has some sort of signature. Still, it’s easier in groups than it is when they’re alone. Hanzo has always kept more or less to himself, only breaking this habit to occasionally talk to his brother, and sometimes Lena or Mei. The latter gives Jesse another excuse to stay away, because she hasn’t forgotten how weird he’s been toward her lately. 

He continues to be weird. He can’t help it. He needs to know if Hanzo’s also staring at her breasts, because then at least he might know which of his competing theories about Hanzo is more true. 

So far, all he’s getting is Mei’s face, lit up and excited to explain her work to someone. It’s cute, actually, to realize that Hanzo likes how nice she is, and appreciates her intelligence, and respects her interests and work enough that he asks her to explain things — even things he already knows or is so helplessly lost on that her explanation makes no difference — purely so she can tell someone about it all. It’s the most wholesome thing Jesse could have possibly learned about him, and it is charming to the point of being disconcerting. 

Hanzo’s affection would be obvious even if Jesse only used his eyes, and Jesse gets the impression he does think she’s pretty, maybe even in a sense that isn’t quite as distant as Jesse’s own reaction to most women. But notably, he doesn’t watch _Mei’s_ mouth the way he did Jesse’s. 

Some days, Jesse will get an image of himself, way better looking than he actually is, and often focused on some body part that makes him blush. There’s his ass, his thighs, and another time with his crotch, which makes him shift his weight and take his hands off his belt. He figures out an old shirt fits too snugly when someone — Hanzo, it has to be, because he’s made up his mind that it’s weirder to assume it’s multiple people than to assume it’s only one — when _Hanzo_ stares at the way the button holes strain across his chest. There’s another shirt whose merits he’s debating, because Hanzo liked the way the fabric clung to his back. 

Obviously it’s flattering, even if it sometimes flusters him too. But it’s fine. Their brief almost-friendship is surely a blip on Hanzo’s radar by now, and there are worse things in the world than knowing a handsome, often mysterious man has the occasional dirty thought about him. If one of these worse things is that Jesse can’t _act_ on the knowledge, well, he’ll just have to console himself with the constant stroking of his ego.

He takes a few missions, all of them quick, and most of them without Hanzo on the roster. The one mission Hanzo’s on, it’s like Jesse can hear every thought with crystal clarity, even when everyone else’s are muddled, and the dragons, Jesse now assumes, rumble with no intelligible human feeling attached, only a vibration like thunder far in the distance. On the job, Hanzo has a single passing thought about Jesse’s ass, then he spends the rest of the time too focused for any of that. On the way back, he cracks a quiet joke that Jesse laughs at more because he’s exhausted than because it’s actually funny. Hanzo’s returning smile sets something nervous fluttering in his stomach, and Jesse finds himself smiling back. 

It makes Jesse renew his commitment to avoidance, because Hanzo keeps _doing_ things that make Jesse respond in misleading ways, and clearly that’s a path he can’t go down. Naturally, his efforts to avoid Hanzo mean that Lady Luck has to intervene. 

Close quarters combat training has never been Jesse’s favorite. There’s a visceral satisfaction in landing a good punch, sure, but he also has about a thousand memories of getting the shit beaten out of him by Gabe, and later Genji, then being required to sit through lectures about everything he did wrong while he was still nursing his swollen hand, or bloody nose, or throbbing ankle, or any other part of his battered body. As with most things Blackwatch-related, he learned, he got better, and he still lives with the resentment. It’s baked in by now. 

Normally, he’d get paired off with Baptiste or Brigitte. They’re the closest in height and build. Sometimes it’s Fareeha, when she’s moonlighting with them instead of doing her real job with Helix. Winston has decided that today’s going to be different, because sparring with the same handful of people makes you develop sloppy shortcuts. Jesse’s got a strong suspicion he knows whose notes Winston read to come to that conclusion. He wouldn’t put it past Gabriel Reyes to punish him with CQC from beyond the grave. 

Today’s punishment is going to be uniquely brutal, given his partner. Jesse knows for a fact it wasn’t rigged, but it still feels like somebody’s out to get him. Hanzo stands across the mat from him, looking amused on the outside and churning with discomfort on the inside. 

“We both know how this is gonna go,” Jesse says. He’s smiling, because here and now, stuck face to face with him, he has the pesky urge to try to tame the chaos he can sense. 

Hanzo laughs, a funny sound almost like he’s spitting that reluctantly escapes from between his tight-pressed lips. “Are you surrendering before we even start?”

“Nah, just acknowledging the odds ain’t in my favor here. Angie can patch up most things, but I don’t wanna take a chance on the teeth. Maybe leave those in my face, if you can.” That gets him a smirk that feels closer to real. “Better yet, let’s just leave my whole face alone. It’s the nicest thing about me.”

_—ridiculous man—would never—_

The thoughts are accompanied by a ripple of embarrassment, a wordless reminder that Hanzo _likes_ his face. 

Jesse lunges while Hanzo’s distracted, feinting left before ducking inside his guard. With a surprised grunt, Hanzo goes down. That’s the end of Jesse’s advantage. He’s lying flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him in under thirty seconds. 

With a cold kick from Angela’s staff, he’s back on his feet fast enough. “I wondered,” Hanzo says distractedly. 

“What’s that?”

“All your talking. It serves a purpose.” 

“Sure doe— mmph.” Jesse’s on his back again, head spinning from hitting the mat so hard. “Cute,” he mutters once he’s righted himself. Hanzo’s eyebrow twitches and so do his lips, smug and cocky and annoyingly attractive. 

Now that they’re both paying attention, it requires more effort, but Hanzo still takes him down again and again. Jesse is pretty sure he would have a Hanzo shaped bruise down his entire torso if it weren’t for Angela’s frequent intervention. He’s not totally helpless. Maybe once every three rounds, he at least gives Hanzo some real trouble. Every time he does, Hanzo grows more intense, until there are almost no thoughts to read, only the sporadic flash of an idea that Jesse’s not quick enough to capitalize on. The absence is somehow worse than when Angela does it, and all the more unnerving because Hanzo doesn’t know his secret. This is simply what Hanzo does when he’s focused on a fight. 

Eventually Jesse has to call it. He’s not learning a whole lot from getting his ass handed to him like this. Hanzo’s too fast and too efficient for Jesse to even know what’s being done to him. All he knows is that it hurts. It’s as bad as it ever was with Genji, only there’s no Gabe breathing down both their necks insisting Genji explain himself. 

He screws up his resolve and swallows his pride, then he asks Hanzo to walk him back through what he did, this time in slow motion. Hanzo’s patient enough, and his thoughts fade back in from total silence to a quiet, unintelligible buzz, like he’s forcibly holding them at bay. 

Long before they’re finished, Jesse has to make himself pay attention to everyone else’s thoughts, because now he _needs_ the distraction. It’s not just the eerie quiet of Hanzo’s mind now that Jesse’s grown used to his particular brand of chaos. It’s also Hanzo’s hands all over him, adjusting his footing or his grip, pulling at his hips or shoulders to fix his balance. Knowing what he knows, Jesse would expect Hanzo to be unsettled and awkward. Instead he’s too busy with the parts to care about the sum, analyzing Jesse’s body with all the clinical distance of someone studying anatomy. Jesse is the only one ruffled here, and more so because Hanzo _isn’t,_ at least as far as he can tell. 

Hanzo may be dispassionate, but Jesse can sense the dragons. This time their presence is like a bass pounding somewhere far away, all vibration and no real sound. It thrums in Jesse’s veins like it’s the thing directing his heartbeat.

When he caught Genji’s dragon purring at Baptiste, it was cute in a weird sort of way. This is _not_ cute. He can’t read this the way he can read people; there are no words or images, only a presence, filtered through the perception of a man so used to them he rarely reacts. The sensation has Jesse half convinced they’d eat him if they could. When Hanzo’s hands touch his skin directly, it only intensifies, like they’re reaching for him, pushing at whatever power keeps them bound. 

The whole experience is harrowing. He probably learns less than he should, and whatever anyone else sees, it’s enough that Genji in particular busies himself looking everywhere _but_ at them. When they’re dismissed, Jesse is in desperate need of a shower. Alone. Away from the gym and people. He mutters, “Thanks,” somewhere in Hanzo’s general direction, then he hightails it out of there before he can embarrass himself any further. 

Back in his room, he tosses his sweaty clothes into the laundry basket and runs the shower as hot as he can stand, forehead pressed against the cool tile while water rushes down his back. He’s willing to blame this entire thing on Hanzo, whose attraction has turned Jesse into a jumpy, embarrassing idiot. 

The mind-reading has been a curse since it began. That’s more apparent than ever. It messed him up knowing Hanzo might want to fuck him, and it’s messing him up now knowing Hanzo didn’t feel it when seemed obvious that he should. Jesse feels it though. 

When he reaches for his dick, it’s already mostly hard, the memory of Hanzo’s hands all over him battering his senses. There’s no echo, no one else’s thoughts in his head. This is all Jesse. 

Hanzo’s hands on his skin were rough, covered in calluses, scraping up goosebumps and leaving a warm buzz in their wake. It’s easy to recall the shape of his mouth and his proud smirk, the weight of his dark eyes on Jesse’s body. They were cool and detached then, but they’ve burned hot on him before. Jesse now knows what it feels like to have Hanzo’s weight pinning him down, what it feels like to have his hands on Hanzo’s arms or back or chest, feeling the muscles shift beneath the skin. 

His mind wanders, cataloguing the details at first, enough sense memory to draw on to get himself fully hard. He skips through vague images, some real and some imagined, while he strokes his hand slowly down the length of his cock. When he finally settles on a fantasy, he imagines finally getting Hanzo on his back, and instead of going for the submission, Jesse surges forward, licks a stripe up the side of Hanzo’s neck, salty with sweat. 

Hanzo freezes, then he grabs Jesse’s hair and yanks him into a kiss. It’s fierce and messy, aggressive like he thinks it could really be. Strong thighs lock around him, then Jesse’s back hits the mat again, Hanzo’s weight settling on top of him. He reaches for Hanzo’s ass with both hands, gripping roughly and pulling him in until he can feel Hanzo’s cock digging into his belly, unmistakable through his thin shorts. 

Jesse’s well on his way to getting himself off — mercifully, blissfully alone for the first time in weeks — when the thoughts start to intrude. 

“Come the fuck on,” he whines at no one in particular. 

He tries to block it out, but it’s _loud,_ a sense of panicked desperation so potent he almost misses that it’s shot through with lust. When it registers, it hits him so hard his hand shakes. The tile feels cold at his back, except that his own is still under the water. He almost laughs, hysteria swirling in the haze of desire at the realization that it _has_ to be Hanzo, back from training and showering now too, with all the same intentions Jesse had. Except that now the desire and the urgency are multiplied, and not just doubled by the entry of another person; Hanzo blocked it out, held it all back in the gym, and now that he’s letting it go it’s like a dam breaking. 

Jesse shudders as it floods his senses, and with no other option, he surrenders to it. It’s no mystery who or what this one is about; Hanzo’s fantasy is close enough to his own, except that they’re naked and Jesse’s hands are pinned over his head while Hanzo bites his way down Jesse’s throat, sinks teeth into his pecs. 

Then it shifts, and Jesse is face down on the mat, Hanzo’s hand shoved in his hair to keep him there while Hanzo fucks him from behind. Jesse has felt Hanzo’s hands on his hips. He knows what it would be like, and he still has enough brain cells left to be surprised and embarrassed by how close Hanzo’s fantasy comes to how Jesse’d really be in that situation, ass up high and all but sobbing for it with every heaving breath. 

It shifts again, a note of frustration vibrating through it all, and Jesse catches a flash of Hanzo looking down his own body, cock in hand and abs twitching, before the fantasy takes over again. This time they’re in the shower, and Jesse’s got Hanzo against the wall, fucking _him_ while Hanzo half fights Jesse’s grip on him, muscles bunching in vain while Jesse holds him in place. 

It’s too much, all of it, and layered over his own fully realized lust, there’s no way Jesse can last long. He comes hard into his hand, trembling as it overtakes his body, and shaking in the aftermath because Hanzo’s not finished, he’s still going, fist working his cock and different ideas flitting in and out, all of them about Jesse, railing him against a wall or taking his dick on his knees, sucking him off or fucking his face, anything that Hanzo can think of while he’s getting himself off. 

Jesse’s cock gives a weak twitch, trying too soon to get it up again, because the images just won’t stop and he’s not sure he wants them to, even if the water’s starting to run cold. Eventually Hanzo stops holding him hostage. He comes, and it washes over Jesse almost like it’s his own. 

Jesse’s fingers feel numb while he scrubs himself down quickly and cuts the water. Shaky legs carry him to his bed, where he sits down hard and flops onto his back, brain working a mile a minute to try to make sense of it — not _what_ happened, but how, and how much of it involved Jesse’s active participation this time. 

There’s a part of him tempted to knock on Hanzo’s door right now and see if he’d be willing to act on everything in his head. It fizzles out just as fast when Jesse remembers he shouldn’t know any of it. There’s no easy way to say how he knows what Hanzo wants. There’s no way to predict how Hanzo might react. Fantasy and reality aren’t the same thing, especially when it comes to coworkers, and especially if it means admitting that Hanzo’s been getting him off without knowing it for _weeks_ now. 

* * *

“What would you do if you could suddenly read minds, and you could tell Mei maybe wanted to, y’know…” Jesse gestures vaguely, wincing at his inability to actually _talk_ about any of this. 

Fortunately Angela understands him well enough. Well. Halfway. “I told you I’m taking her to a nice Italian restaurant on Friday. I do not need further encouragement, thank you. Look straight ahead for me.” She shines a light directly into one eye, then the next. 

Jesse blinks away the spots before he can say more. “Right, congrats, but that’s not… What I’m askin’ is for you to put yourself in my shoes.” 

She pauses, and he can see the moment she catches on even though he can’t read her thoughts anymore. “Does someone have a crush?” she asks with a smirk. 

“I… sure. Yeah. We’ll call it that.” 

“What do you— oh.” She can’t quite manage not to pull a face. 

“Just because you don’t want my ass doesn’t mean nobody does.”

She snorts. “I both do and do not want to know what you’ve seen now.” 

“Someone might wanna know, but _you_ definitely don’t. It’s uh. Graphic.”

“Do you feel… okay with this?” she asks carefully. 

It takes Jesse a moment. “It’s not _not-_ okay, if that’s what you’re askin’. It’s weird as hell, but it’s not… Nobody’s actin’ badly.” 

She nods, biting her lip. “You know it is still possible for men—”

“This is not that kinda conversation. They’re just thoughts. It’s weird, but there’s no pressure and it’s nobody’s fault anyway.”

“Okay.” 

“So what would you do?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.” Suddenly she laughs. “Wait. You asked if it were Mei.” 

“Or anybody, really,” he says quickly. Angela raises an eyebrow. “Anybody who wouldn’t be… a total turnoff for you?”

She isn’t smiling, but it’s a near thing. He can see it at the corners of her mouth, trying to come out. “Of course. Well. If it were me, and I could read Mei’s thoughts, and she thought of me naked or something, I would be _incredibly_ flattered, if perhaps uncomfortable, depending on the timing. And then I would… I don’t know. I shouldn’t really have that information, should I? I suppose I could tell her, which risks embarrassing her and perhaps appearing to leap to conclusions or expect something from her.”

“Right, because a few dirty thoughts don’t mean you wanna act on ’em.”

“I could go on as if I don’t know anything. If you _use_ the information without telling him, it is questionable at best, and outright manipulative at worst. So you have to decide if you would prefer to tell him the whole truth or behave as if you know nothing. I assume it’s a ‘him,’ or you’d be… less concerned, I think.”

Jesse sighs. “I’ve been tryin’ to act like I don’t know. Not like I can just say, ‘Oh, hey there, Hanzo, I know you wanna grab my ass, you wanna get a drink?’” Angela’s lips press tightly together, and Jesse sighs again. “Yeah, it’s Hanzo. Figured you would do that math on your own quick enough.” 

Angela suddenly blanches. “This explains so much about training the other day.”

“Is he that obvious?”

 _“Him?_ Jesse…”

“Because he’s just _constantly_ in my head. It’s worse than anybody else, actually, like if he’s around he just hogs all the brainwaves.”

Angela rubs a hand across her mouth, and he gets the impression her face is not saying what it should. “I can’t help you. Not right now. You have to pay me in whiskey for this, and I can’t drink on the job.”

She kicks him out of her office, and he’s left to fend for himself. He didn’t get much from the conversation, but Angela’s ability to lock him out did inspire him a little. He’s been operating under the assumption that he shouldn’t change anything, but maybe Hanzo deserves to know. If nothing else, maybe he deserves the opportunity to learn to block Jesse out so he can have some privacy again. It means admitting to something that’s going to embarrass them both, but maybe it’d better in the long run. 

Jesse can’t tell if his own motives are selfish or not. Maybe he just wants to take this burden off his own shoulders, at Hanzo’s expense. Maybe telling him would only humiliate him. Maybe what Hanzo doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and this is some fleeting attraction he’ll move on from in another few weeks. Jesse rubs at his chest like that will release the knot of anxiety inside. 

* * *

He doesn’t get a chance to make up his mind before the next mission. 

Winston has them working in pairs, scouring the massive shipyard for a single container. Hanzo is stuck at Jesse’s side. His thoughts are only a distant buzz again. Between the comm chatter in his ear and all the confusion Hanzo’s presence brings, Jesse’s grateful for the relative quiet. 

It should be a simple mission, so of course it isn’t. 

_—ask for a raise—creepy as hell—here somewhere—_

Jesse glances at Hanzo, but there’s no way that one came from him. He turns off his flashlight, and he reaches for Hanzo, a quick tap of fingers against his wrist to get him to stop moving and listen. Hanzo’s light goes off too. They stand still, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the dim industrial lighting. Soon enough they can hear several pairs of booted feet on the other side of the nearest container. 

As quietly as he can, Jesse flicks on his comm. “Think we got company.”

_“Who?”_

“No eyes on ’em yet.”

Hanzo’s head is cocked to one side, listening carefully. He rubs a hand along the orange metal wall of the container, then he points upward and looks back at Jesse. There’s an image there of what Hanzo’s trying to do: he can scale it easily, but it will be less noisy with Jesse’s help. 

Jesse’s already moving to help brace him before he’s thought enough about it. Hanzo’s surprised, but if it comes up later, it’s easy enough to wave off with a joke about great minds thinking alike. Even so, Jesse can sense the curiosity buzzing while Hanzo steps swiftly into Jesse’s steadying grip and hoists himself onto the top of the container. He presses himself nearly flat up there, shimmying to the far edge. 

There’s a quick image of at least half a dozen red helmets before Hanzo retreats. He comes back down the way he went up. Once he’s done using Jesse as his personal step ladder, he holds up eight fingers. 

Jesse catches a flash of where the small squad is heading, and he wordlessly herds Hanzo in the opposite direction, around the corner and into the shadows. “Talon. Eight on us,” Jesse murmurs under his breath. Hanzo makes a face in the dark that he can’t make out, but Jesse’s focusing on the enemy movements too much to care right away. 

_“Four near us,”_ Tracer whispers. 

_“Six baddies in my sights, and a sniper on one of the cranes in the west corner.”_ Baptiste sounds grimmer than Jesse’s ever heard him. 

Genji chimes in, tinny in his ear. _“Eight here too.”_

“Tracer, if you only see four…”

_“Update: definitely six.”_

“Ambush,” Hanzo growls, so low that Jesse’s not sure whether he actually spoke at all. 

_“There are more inbound. They’re surrounding you,”_ Winston confirms. _“Evacuate. Now. I’ll ping an extraction point.”_

The conversation ends, and without the distraction, Jesse realizes the squad nearby is closing in rapidly. He pushes Hanzo around the next corner of their container, pressing him against the metal wall. Hanzo’s thoughts clang in Jesse’s head. It’s a mighty inconvenient time to remember Hanzo’s had at least one memorable fantasy involving the two of them in this position. Neither one moves, but Hanzo’s chest hitches as he tries to get his breathing under control, and it brushes against Jesse, which doesn’t do either of them any favors. 

Every step on the other side of the container seems to ring in his ears, and he instinctively pushes further into the shadows — and against Hanzo. It feels like it takes a thousand years for the enemy to walk by, but eventually they do, and Jesse feels safe moving again. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, and Hanzo only shoots him a look that he interprets as, _Shut up and focus._

The squad is definitely fanning out, searching like they know someone is nearby. Jesse’s never actively tried reaching for someone else’s thoughts. It takes more concentration than he expected, but he can do it. Their steps are louder than Jesse’s and especially Hanzo’s, which is as good a cover as any for how well Jesse can predict their movements. 

He carefully steers Hanzo away from the enemy. They’re in the far corner, closest to the water and farthest from the strip of warehouses that lead eventually back toward the city’s industrial park. Eventually Hanzo resists Jesse’s herding, yanking him instead into a dark recess between two containers. 

“Where are you taking us?” Hanzo hisses. 

“Just tryin’ to keep us outta sight.”

“The exit is behind us.”

“If we can get to a boat—”

“You want to walk us into a dead end?” Jesse pauses, and he realizes the nerves radiating off Hanzo aren’t from their close quarters or even from the present situation. He’s _suspicious._ Of Jesse. “Or are you planning to swim in your body armor?”

“There’s plenty of places to hide on a boat. Can wait ’em out.” Hanzo isn’t satisfied, but it doesn’t matter, because Jesse catches a flash of a gun, sights, and a target right in the middle. “Echo, get to cover.” 

He waits, holding his breath, for the gunshot to sound. It never comes. 

After a moment, the comm crackles to life again. _“Thanks,”_ is all Echo says, but she sounds rattled. 

Hanzo takes a step back, eyeing him from head to toe, more prickly suspicion coming off him in waves. 

Jesse reaches for him, and Hanzo wrenches away from him. “What was that?” 

“Nothin’. They’re close by. We gotta get goin’.”

“How do you _know_ that?” 

_—right into a trap—what is he—_

Hanzo is immovable, and the thoughts flitting through his head make Jesse’s stomach clench. Jesse reaches for him again, but instead of pulling, this time he gets him by both elbows and steps into his space, praying that if anything works, it will be this. “Hanzo, please. We can’t do this right now.” Hanzo is frozen, startled by the way Jesse’s touching him, but it hasn’t taken any of the edge off. Quietly panicking, Jesse asks, “If I promise to tell you how I know once we’re outta here, will you trust me?” 

Someone is coming. They _need_ to move. Hanzo stares wide-eyed at him, then he blinks hard and shakes himself from the stupor. “Fine. Lead the way.”

It’s obviously a pragmatic choice. Hanzo’s other option is to go it alone and leave Jesse behind. If he’s wrong, he’s leaving behind a teammate; if he’s right, he’s leaving an enemy at his back. Hanzo thinks Jesse could be _working_ with them, and he’s arguing with himself about it, a distracting flurry of thoughts so loud it makes it difficult to focus. But what matters in the moment is that Jesse leads, and Hanzo follows. 

There’s a sniper nearby, and Jesse reaches out until he sees the shipyard from their position: it’s swarming with Talon agents from end to end, including over by the docks. The good news is that the sniper doesn’t see any of their teammates. 

He’s forced to concede that Hanzo’s right about the boats, especially since they’re already being guarded. He guides them slowly, painstakingly across the yard. His heart pounds in his throat with every step. They get the quiet check-ins as two pairs of their teammates arrive at the extraction point, but they’re still creeping along. It gets easier to maneuver when they reach one of the warehouses at one end, but the space between this building and the next is too large and too open. 

There’s a break room on the bottom floor, though, with a thick, heavy glass window and plenty of metal tables for cover. They manage to pick the lock and get inside unseen, then they stay out of sight of the window while Jesse informs the team of their position. 

They both sit against the wall just below the window. Hanzo scowls his way like Jesse didn’t just navigate hostile territory to help save his ass. A beam of light passes over their heads and into the room, and Jesse carefully readies his gun. There’s some chatter outside, muted by the dense glass, but he knows the room looks empty to them and too open to hide anyone. 

Nobody enters. The agents walk away. 

Jesse does what he can to tune out Hanzo’s racing thoughts, and neither of them speak. They sit until Jesse’s ass goes numb and his tailbone begins to ache, until his whole body is shouting at him to move before it locks up entirely. It’s plenty of time for Jesse to figure out how many opportunities he gave Hanzo to see that something wasn’t right. 

Eventually, they get the third check-in but not the all clear. Talon got the container they were after, but nobody in Overwatch got caught. Winston’s not yet ready to risk giving away the drop ship’s position, in case Talon’s still keeping an eye on them. Their orders are to stay put until they’re contacted with a safe pickup location or they’re sure there are few enough Talon agents left that he and Hanzo can fight their way out. 

Jesse groans at the orders the moment he’s turned his comm off again. He’s starting to get hungry, and he’s dreading talking to Hanzo. 

He doesn’t know how much longer they sit in silence before Hanzo breaks it abruptly. “You knew they were Talon.” His voice is quiet, but it’s somehow still too much after the long silence. It’s rough with disuse, and he clears his dry throat afterward. 

“Didn’t you? They love their red helmets.” 

“You knew _before_ you saw them.” When Jesse looks at him in the dark, he can just make out Hanzo staring straight forward, jaw clenched. 

“What exactly is your point, here?” He thinks he knows, but even with access to Hanzo’s paranoid mind, Jesse doesn’t think he’ll believe it until Hanzo says something out loud.

“They knew we would be here, and you knew they were Talon.” This close, Jesse can feel how tight Hanzo’s throat is, can feel his heart racing and his nails digging into his palms. “Explain that.”

“I’m a mind-reader,” Jesse says as nonchalantly as he can. It’s been weeks of this, and it still feels crazy as hell to say it aloud. 

_—could have died—_ Genji _could have died—_ _traitor of course—_

Hanzo rounds on him, furious, and then Jesse’s pinned against the wall remembering just how many ways Hanzo kicked his ass in training. “This isn’t time for your jokes.” 

_—why wouldn’t he be—what you deserve—foolish to think—_

Jesse’s careful about it, but he gets his hands between them, only resting them on Hanzo’s shoulders. He tries not to put up enough of a fight to set him off. “Not a joke, I swear to you. It’s— I can. I saw ’em because you saw ’em. I’d never sell us out. I’d never put Genji in danger like that.” Hanzo hesitates, but it’s not good enough. Anyone who’s spent a few minutes with him could guess he’d care about that. “Hanzo, you know me.”

“Do I?” he asks, and Jesse’s chest aches with a dozen different feelings he can’t name, Hanzo’s mixing with his until he can’t separate them. But some of the pressure lets up. 

“I know it sounds crazy, but c’mon, you’ve got _dragons_ inside you. Nothing’s too crazy for you, right? Try me. Think of something.” Hanzo scowls, and an image starts to form. Jesse feels something like hysteria writhe inside him when he realizes Hanzo’s fucking _threatening_ him with his thoughts. “Last time you had a guy in this position, you killed him with your bare hands. No weapon. It was two years ago in Laos. He was a human trafficker, and you wanted him to suffer, but you knew it couldn’t undo the shit he put people through, and you drank until—”

“Stop,” Hanzo growls. He lets Jesse go, though, rubbing his hands on his pants legs like that will undo it. There is barely time for him to process relief before the doubt and guilt come crashing in, fear that anything he did to Jesse actually hurt him. 

“I’m fine,” Jesse says, and Hanzo’s gaze snaps back to his. “No hard feelings. It made sense. I would’ve thought the same. _Done_ the same.”

“Don’t do that.” 

Jesse shuts his mouth and swallows hard. Hanzo takes his place beside him against the wall again. Jesse’s pretty sure he’s not just imagining there’s more distance between them this time. There’s a lengthy silence while Hanzo’s thoughts jump around, a jumbled mess of things, and Jesse tries to ignore them. 

Then Hanzo asks, “Why didn’t I know?”

“I don’t know. Was hopin’ it was temporary, I guess. Didn’t want to have to explain it to anybody or deal with whatever might happen because of it.”

“So it is a secret?”

“Yeah. If you wouldn’t mind keepin’ it that way.”

Hanzo nods, and Jesse can hear his solemn agreement without him saying a word. Then a frisson of anxiety moves through them both. “‘Temporary’. How long?”

It feels like a trap, but Hanzo’s suspicion is only half-formed. Jesse closes his eyes and drops his head back against the wall. “Six weeks, give or take.” 

He can feel Hanzo wracking his brain, counting backward through the days, and this time the pang is purely Jesse’s. “You never sought me out before, and then…”

“It was a coincidence. The timing. I didn’t know you were there.”

“You have never used this on me?”

Jesse rubs a hand over his face. “I might have… prodded.”

“You ‘guessed’ I would like the matcha buns.”

“Yeah,” Jesse sighs. It feels worse now, knowing what it has to sound like to Hanzo. 

_“Why?”_

“I don’t— I was just tryin’ to be nice. You’re not easy to talk to and I had this brand new trick I couldn’t control but it _worked_ and… I promise it was nothin’ worse than wanting to get to know you.”

There’s a flutter of thoughts, Hanzo flitting from one to another like he isn’t sure where to land. “You can’t control it?” he asks carefully.

“Not really. Not very well. I’m not… digging around in other people’s heads so much as their thoughts are shouting at me.” 

“Ah.” Hanzo chews on the information, conflicted all the way to his bones, but he seems to be forgiving enough of Jesse’s unintended breaches of his privacy. At least, until a thought hits, striking a chord of gut-wrenching panic. “So you have seen…”

Images flicker too rapidly, Hanzo’s guilty conscience over ogling him. Jesse laughs nervously. “Yeah, uh. That stuff too.” 

He glances over at Hanzo, whose face has taken on a slightly dazed expression. Several things happen in rapid succession. First it’s like a hole in the ground opens up to swallow him, humiliation so deep that it makes Jesse’s breath catch. It’s followed by a wave of hurt. “I see,” Hanzo says tightly, and then a wall of silence slams into place. 

Hanzo’s blocking him out, better at it in a moment than Angela after weeks of practice — although Jesse supposes Hanzo’s got a lot more experience shutting out his own emotions. 

“Hanzo, I—”

“Do not.” His jaw is clenched so tightly that he’s practically speaking through his teeth. 

Jesse’s going to say more, but the comm crackles to life in his ear. _“Enemy has cleared out. Who’s ready to go home?”_


	4. Chapter 4

The thing is, it could probably be resolved with a conversation. Jesse knows this. He might feel like a dumbass, but he’s not that dumb.

It _could_ be that easy, but Hanzo refuses to let him speak. He then spends the entirety of the trip back casually putting as much space between them as he can, so that wherever Jesse is, Hanzo’s on the opposite side. It’s an impressive talent, really. Hanzo’s so much better at avoidance than Jesse was. 

Back on base, Hanzo disappears before Jesse can catch him. There’s no point in him hunting for a real life ninja, but Jesse tries it, at least for a little while. The base is massive, and Hanzo could be anywhere. Winston could play hide-and-seek in this place if he wanted. Jesse has to give in to his exhaustion and admit the futility of the search eventually. 

When he returns to his room, he makes a beeline for the cigars and the whiskey he’s been saving for a real bullshit day. 

* * *

“You’re _so_ stupid,” Angela giggles. She took a couple fingers of whiskey before she moved on to the wine. Now she’s on her second glass, and there’s no telling when she last slept. She’s never been great at unwinding, which means she gets especially ridiculous when she actually _does._ His task now is to make sure that when she does finally crash, she does it in her room and not on the musty sofa in this half forgotten break room. 

He did his duty as her friend by asking about Mei first. Things are going well there, a first date and several casual lunches under their belts. Angela has also made some headway on restoring his reputation with Mei. He never asked for it, but he appreciates the effort anyway. Now they’re on the subject of Hanzo, though, and Angie can’t stop laughing at him.

“Yep. That’s what I came to you for. I needed somebody else to fuck with me.” He mutters it all around his cigar, painfully aware of exactly how surly he sounds. It only encourages her. 

“Jesse,” she says quickly. “Jesse.” Now she’s too close, teetering on her knees on the overstuffed couch cushions. She rests both hands on his cheeks, carefully turning his head to face her fully. His eyes sting from trying not to blow smoke at her. She looks him directly in the eye to make sure she has his whole attention. “I don't say this often enough. Jesse. I love you. And you are _so stupid.”_

He pushes gently at her and she laughs again as she unbalances, flopping hard back onto the couch. He safely exhales the smoke now, coughing as he does. “I appreciate the feedback. I really do.” 

_“Why_ would you only tell him _half?”_

“Because it was weird! I wasn’t thinkin’ straight! A lot of things happened, you know, like almost dyin’ or being taken prisoner. I didn’t know what to say. And then he told me to stop talking about it. And now he’s just… poof, gone, fuckin’ ninja-like.” 

She makes a grabby hand gesture at his cigar, and he hands it over for her to take a thoughtful draw. She sits up straighter, chin high like she’s trying to make herself look dignified again. Then she hands it back and says, with a solemn nod, “He’s stupid too.” 

“Thank you. Glad I got some company.” Jesse takes a long sip of his drink. “What do you think he’s thinkin’?”

“There is no telling with that one. Maybe he’s plotting a way to kill you to keep his secrets. Won’t that be fun?” She stops her own laugh and clears her throat. “Sorry. He’s probably embarrassed. I would be.”

“Me too.” He heaves out a breath. “You think he’s upset I _didn’t_ act on it?”

“Well, that _is_ a common sign of disinterest.”

“But I’m not disin—”

“Oh, I _know.”_ She snorts. “Is it just about sex?” Jesse’s sort of proud of her for asking without pulling a rude face at the thought of him naked, but he doesn’t follow why she’s asking. She sighs and gestures, a broad sweep of her hand. “I mean for him. It would help to know whether you hurt his pride or his feelings.”

“Huh.” He picks at a loose thread on his jeans. “I never got that figured out.”

She gives him a skeptical look, but she doesn’t elaborate on whatever thought produced it, and the alcohol is dulling his ability to make sense of them. “It’s probably an important distinction.”

Jesse doesn’t know how long he sits in silence, mulling it over and coming to no concrete conclusions, but he can feel, weirdly, that Angela’s blinks are growing slower and heavier. He rubs a hand over his face. “I just… I need to talk to him. That’s all.”

“Mmhmm.” She yawns. 

“Gotta sit him down and make him listen.”

“Indeed.” She starts to slump where she’s sitting. 

“Go to bed,” he sighs. 

“Okay.”

It only takes a few minutes to clear the room of their trash, so he waves her off and does it himself. There’s not much he can do about the lingering smell of smoke, but he hears the quiet rattle of some vents coming to life as he leaves the room. “Thanks,” he says to the ceiling, because he never really knows where to look to address Athena, and he’s never gotten over the habit of trying to apply human manners to an AI who doesn’t give a damn. 

Angela’s already well on her way back to her own room, but he catches up to her anyway because he can hear her thinking her office chair is more convenient. He’s found her napping in so many shitty places that he should have known not to trust her to make good choices. He’s not going to invade her room to ensure she actually falls asleep in her bed and not on her floor, but it’s a near thing. 

As he staggers down the hall back to his own room, Jesse has an alcohol-soaked epiphany. There is one guaranteed time and place to find Hanzo. He is just tired and tipsy enough to snicker at his own brilliance, and just sober enough to remember to set an alarm. 

* * *

One of the few good things to come out of the migraine treatment is that the intended effects are still working. He wakes up groggier than usual, but there’s no headache to go with it. He brushes his teeth and splashes his face with water until he’s awake enough, then he heads out, determined. 

He doesn’t go far. Hanzo’s alarm is going off, delicate chimes tinkling in the quiet, the volume slowly increasing. He’s not sure if he’s hearing it in his head or through the door. The sound continues long enough that it makes him hesitate, but then it abruptly stops, which means Hanzo’s in there and awake enough to hit the snooze button. 

Jesse screws up his courage and knocks. When he doesn’t get an answer, he does it again more loudly. Then he does it again. 

“Who is it?” Hanzo finally snaps. 

“McCree. Jesse. Uh, me.”

The answer is nothing but silence. He strongly suspects Hanzo is planning to pretend he isn’t in, despite that he’s already responded. Jesse knocks again, and he doesn’t stop until he hears cursing on the other side of the door. 

“What are you _doing?”_ Hanzo growls. 

“Trying to talk to you.”

“Do you have any idea how annoying this is?”

“I sure do. I can make it worse.” That nets him a reluctant, frustrated laugh, which he takes as a good sign. He moves closer to the door, feeling self-conscious about having to do this in the hallway. “You got two choices. You can let me in to talk, or you can listen to me knock some more. Or I guess you could ask me to leave. I don’t wanna hold you hostage. That’d be a dick move. But you shouldn’t pick that one.”

He’s leaning so heavily on the door that he nearly stumbles when it opens. Hanzo scowls at him, plainly suspicious even through the mental wall he’s got up. Jesse is also suspicious. He happens to know that Hanzo sleeps shirtless, but he is currently wearing one. There’s not a single wrinkle in it either. 

Hanzo backs away to let him in, keeping several feet of space between them. Jesse sighs. 

“Please explain why this is what I have to wake up to.” Hanzo crosses his arms, adding yet another barrier between them. It’s at odds with how nice his voice sounds when it’s still low and sleepy. 

“Okay.” Jesse takes a breath and lets it out slowly. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you differently. I saw your thoughts, but I was afraid doin’ anything would be takin’ advantage. I wasn’t telling anybody, so if I told you, it’d just be for… what? To get laid? I don’t know. None of my options felt right.”

There are flickers of something coming through now, but nothing Jesse can quite read. Hanzo is still frowning. “I see.” The expression falters. “So you saw these things and decided to avoid me.”

“Because I couldn’t act on it. What was I supposed to do? Keep hangin’ around knowing what I knew—”

“Letting me believe there was a chance when there wasn’t. Yes, I understand. Thank you, McCree, for the clarity.” He bites out every word like this conversation requires all his restraint. The dragons are rumbling again too; Jesse imagines guard dogs protecting their master. 

“No. I mean, yes, but not—” Jesse groans in frustration. “Listen, I didn’t act on it before because you didn’t know. But now you do know, and I’m here tryin’ to tell you I _liked_ what I saw.” 

Hanzo takes a deep breath. “Liked it how?” he asks cautiously.

Jesse finally tries out a smile, flirtatious and slow and a lot more confident than he feels. “Liked it, meaning if you ever wanted to make any of that stuff real, I’d be more than happy to help.”

Some piece of him might have hoped that this is the part where Hanzo drops the defensive shit and jumps him. That piece is sorely disappointed. Hanzo won’t look at him, choosing instead to stare at the floor. “I’m glad you found it so complimentary.” There’s an edge to it, a tightness in his voice that Jesse can’t make sense of. “I will consider your offer. Now if you will excuse me, I have to start my day.”

It’s a clear dismissal, but Jesse can’t make his feet move. The best he can do is shift his weight. “I said somethin’ wrong again, didn’t I?”

That gets him a wry smile that never meets Hanzo’s eyes. “I am not sure it’s a matter of right or wrong. You simply stated what you want.”

“And it’s not what you want.”

“No. I don’t think it is.”

Jesse backs away toward the door. “Well, if you—” Jesse coughs. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He jerks his thumb awkwardly in the direction of his room. 

He flees then, dropping his pasted on smile the moment his back is to Hanzo. It would be nice to think that the mild nausea is from last night’s alcohol, but he’s not quite able to talk himself into that. It was always a possibility that Hanzo fantasizing didn’t equal Hanzo wanting something real and actionable. He’s been telling himself that all along, trying to keep his assumptions in check. None of his warnings to himself fully prepared him for the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

“How are you doin’?” Jesse asks, even though he knows the answer from Angela’s pale face and sluggish movements. 

“Wishing I too could read minds instead of experiencing headaches.”

He snorts. They both know the trade-off isn’t worth it. “Staff can’t give you a little boost?” 

“I’ve never gotten it to respond appropriately when used on the person who is handling it.”

“I could give it a try.” Jesse grins at her. 

“I think I will stick with the ibuprofen.” She smiles back though, so Jesse will take the win. She removes the blood pressure cuff, then she carefully lowers the helmet onto his head again. “Have you managed to resolve your problem?”

There’s a twinge in Jesse’s chest. “Ah. Sort of. He knows it wasn’t a rejection, anyway.”

Her eyes flick down to his face, then back up at the contraption on his head. “Should I brace myself for TMI?”

“Heh, no, it’s—” He clears his throat. “Nothin’ came of it.”

She pauses. “Oh, Jesse. I’m so sorry.”

The tightness in his chest intensifies in the face of her sympathy. “It’s fine. Just not what I thought it was, right?” He smirks, knowing even as he does that it’s unconvincing. “Turns out you can read minds and still not know a damn thing about somebody.”

She searches his face for a moment, but she elects to say nothing. Then she smiles again. It’s too bright and patently false, but it’s nice that she’s trying. “Well. If all goes well today, you won’t be able to read minds anymore! That’s one problem solved.”

It does actually cheer him up, because it means finally getting back to normal. The device hums as she flicks it on, then he gets something almost like brain freeze. It doesn’t hurt, but it is intense. There’s a swoop of nausea in his stomach and his vision begins to blur.

“Jesse? Jesse?” He blinks his eyes open, and everything is bleary. He’s slumped against Angela, who is bravely managing not to crumple under his weight. He braces a hand on the edge of the exam table to right himself. 

“Shit.” 

“Can you sit up on your own?” He nods, although it’s restricted by the gear on his head. She runs a hand along his face, whipping out her tiny flashlight to shine it into his eyes. She checks his heart rate and his blood pressure again, runs him through a few more quick tests, then she sighs. “Nothing appears to have changed. You simply fainted. Do you _feel_ different?”

“Kinda groggy.”

“Mm, that’s to be expected, but do let me know if that persists.” 

“You think it worked?” He’ll live with feeling woozy if it means he can finally get everyone else out of his head. She stares at him a long time, focused, like she’s trying to shove something into his brain with the force of her eyes. He can’t hear or see or feel anything that isn’t his own. “You tryin’ something, doc?”

“Yes!” She keeps at it, but the only thoughts in his head belong to him. 

They go on for nearly two full minutes, which is an uncomfortably long time to maintain eye contact even with a friend of twenty years. “Holy shit,” he finally says. “You’re a goddamn genius.”

“These are only preliminary results. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” The grin on her face contradicts the words, though. She’s almost as relieved as he is. Neither of them can contain their excitement as she runs through her usual battery of questions and gives him a list of possible side effects to watch for. 

He spends the rest of the day squinting at his teammates, trying hard to pick up on what they’re thinking. He watches Hana and Brigitte, and there’s not a single agonizing moment where he has to hear Hana overthink Brigitte’s every word. He still wants to lock them in a room together, but it’s a lot more tolerable now that he’s got some distance from it. 

He watches Genji flirt, and there’s not even a hint of his dragon being weird. He makes it through a meeting in which he only knows Lena’s daydreaming because it’s what she always does. He doesn’t have to bear witness to Winston’s constant second-guessing of himself. Nobody gives him funny looks. Mei actually smiles and says hello again. It’s nothing but blissful silence all day long. 

It’s almost enough to let him forget how the morning began, at least until he runs into Hanzo in the hallway after dinner. That makes his ribs squeeze tight around him, and he carefully sidesteps to get out of Hanzo’s way. Hanzo’s eyes narrow as they look him over, focused like he is some kind of problem to solve, and Jesse almost misses being able to hear his thoughts. 

Otherwise, everything is great. He can finally spend time around multiple teammates again, which means ignoring the part that _isn’t_ great is much easier than it might be otherwise. 

* * *

Jesse wakes up before his alarm. He’s hard as a rock, his skin tacky with a thin film of sweat. If he was having a pleasant dream, he has no memory of it. Unbidden, he gets the sensation of a hand moving down his stomach, the imagined sense of someone else kissing him. He bites back the despair, afraid any sound that escapes is going to be humiliating. 

This time the fantasy feels a lot more personal. Hanzo is imagining someone who is faceless and formless for now, and Jesse’s mind shies away from casting himself in the role. They are on top of him, an insistent, heavy weight sinking him into the soft bedding. Lips brush his cheek and jaw, his neck, and Jesse can feel the whole thing as if he’s both the one doing it and the one receiving the kisses. An adoring hand slides down his side, coming to rest at his hip, fingertips barely pressing into the flesh.

The whole thing is awash in more than simple lust. It’s warm and soft, hazy with affection and a faint pang shivering beneath it. It’s downright sappy, and its function as a masturbatory fantasy feels almost secondary to whatever else it’s meant to be. 

Jesse’s stomach flips. This isn’t for him. None of it has ever been for him, but this one especially isn’t. He tries getting up, moving around to distract himself, but the combination of desire coiling inside him and the terrible longing makes it difficult. He doesn’t even know if the ache is his or Hanzo’s.

The vision stutters to a halt, then it starts from the top. Hanzo wraps a hand around his cock, and it starts a third time. A thread of stubborn determination winds through when it begins once more, this time with a lot less of the sappy stuff and a lot more of the biting, aggressive sort of kissing. Then it skips ahead in time, straight to a tried and true fantasy: Jesse’s mouth on his cock. 

The loneliness keeps creeping in though, and eventually the fantasies simply dissipate, leaving Jesse with nothing but his own erection and a fading impression of mournful frustration. There’s guilt eating at the edges of it all, too, but that might be entirely Jesse’s. 

He flops back down onto his bed, face in his hands. This isn’t supposed to be happening. He’s not supposed to see this any more. It feels especially unfair that he has to be subjected to it after Hanzo rejected him. The universe is outright taunting him at this point, dangling what he wants in front of him when he knows he can’t have it. 

And Hanzo, well, what the fuck? Jesse can’t be mad. Hanzo doesn’t owe him a thing. But how can Hanzo have fantasies like _that_ then turn him away? 

There’s something he’s missing, something that he knows will be so fucking obvious once he’s solved it that he’s going to beat himself up over it. He recalls what he can of Hanzo’s thoughts about him, replays the conversation they had, combing for clues. He’s on the verge of some epiphany when “Night Rocker” derails his train of thought. Jesse laughs because there’s nothing left to do, and if it sounds like a desperate sob that’s nobody’s business but his own. 

One day. He got one day of reprieve. It’s somehow worse than if he never got a break at all. 

He showers to the ironic soundtrack of “If You Could Read My Mind” — as performed by Hasselhoff, naturally — and the distant buzz of his own dread. He feels hollow inside. He wants Hanzo to give him a chance, and he’s slowly realizing that he was so damn concerned with what Hanzo was thinking and feeling that he didn’t bother to check in with himself. Maybe it’s the depressing lyrics getting to him, but he knows now that he was more invested in Hanzo’s attraction to him than he was willing to admit. It’s not just his pride that’s hurting. 

* * *

Hanzo’s mixed signals are going to kill him. They don’t stop. 

Hanzo trudges into breakfast as Jesse’s washing his dishes, which Jesse only even knows because Hanzo glances at his ass again. There’s a meeting at nine, in which they review the previous mission. Winston takes responsibility for Talon knowing they would be present. He thinks they learned Overwatch would be going after the shipping container because he was following a lead he didn’t vet properly. Attempting to seize Talon’s assets before they did was simply a predictable next step, although he has been carefully reviewing Athena’s security protocols to ensure there hasn’t been a breach there. 

It’s nice to have confirmation there’s nobody passing intel to the enemy here. Alongside a wave of concern and relief, there’s a thread of guilt, a memory of Jesse pressed against a wall looking far more panicked than he actually was, shrinking away as if his assailant is a monster. It’s so surprising that he accidentally catches Hanzo’s eye, and Hanzo looks away quickly, the mental wall sliding back into place. This time, though, it’s incomplete; his thoughts and feelings are muted, not blocked off entirely. 

He can feel Winston’s guilt too, worse on the inside than even his stammering apologies. It’s enough that Jesse has to speak up, if only to get it out of his head. “It happens. You think Jack never ran a compromised mission? Nobody got hurt. That’s all that matters.” He shrugs. “You’re doin’ fine, boss.”

The sudden gratitude that radiates off of Winston is uncomfortable, and so is the tiny, reluctant burst of affection from somewhere off to his left.

At lunch, Hanzo keeps looking at his hands, admiring both of them equally, which Jesse knows from experience is rare enough that it makes his throat close up. In CQC, it’s his exposed calves, like Jesse’s some Victorian maiden flashing her ankles at him, then the swath of naked back when Baptiste’s submission hold also pulls his shirt up. This is also how he learns that Hanzo _does_ think Baptiste is hot, but it doesn’t have the weight to it that it has when he’s looking at Jesse. It’s more like when Hanzo looked at Mei; he’s appreciating the obvious, not… fixating.

Hanzo clearly doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, or at least he doesn’t realize he’s still in range for Jesse’s ability, or the wall would be up. It’s not his fault. It’s just that it makes Jesse’s chest seize and his breaths stutter every time, because somehow all those admiring looks amount to nothing.

* * *

“It didn’t work.” He does his best not to sound like he’s outright whining, but he’s not sure he succeeds. Angela sits him down and begins the usual questionnaire, reassuringly cool and professional about it. Then she leans in close to strap him back into the helmet he’s learning to hate with every fiber of his being.

_—temporary how unpredictable—_

He squints at Angela, focusing. Her wall is up too, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

_—wrong should have been more careful wonder what Peña’s research—_

Guilt and concern collapse in on him until it’s almost impossible to breathe. She’s fiercely determined too. He can feel the clench of her jaw and the ache forming at her temples, and he knows she’s hungry, knows she skipped most of lunch because she wanted to get back to work, and Mei’s going to scold her for it later but maybe it will be an excuse to order something nice for dinner together, and last time was nice too, Mei wore that blouse with the red flowers—

“Angie.”

—Jesse looks overwhelmed and she can’t blame him after everything he’s gone through lately, and somehow it makes him look older but younger too, like when they were kids and all he ever wanted was to be a bad influence— 

“Angie, stop.”

_—hurt?—_

“Stop what?”

She backs away, and suddenly the thoughts fade to a more typical intensity. He takes a breath to steady himself, then he closes his eyes. “I think it got worse.”

* * *

Winston’s hulking body barely fits into the laboratory, and he knows it. He hunches, caving in on himself in order to take up less space. It’s the first time Jesse’s noticed, but in an instant he knows it’s a frequent occurrence. The Watchpoint wasn’t made for a gorilla. Even among his friends and colleagues, there is always some persistent reminder that no part of the world he inhabits was built with him in mind. 

Winston adjusts his glasses delicately and inches forward, studying the holo projection of Jesse’s brain. Mei is in a chair just in front of Winston, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She’s trying not to show how excited she is to have this kind of scientific mystery dropped in her lap. She doesn’t want Jesse to think his struggle is just some experiment. It’s sweet that she’s concerned, and cute that she’s excited. No wonder Hanzo likes talking to her when she’s deep in a project. 

He doesn’t want to think about Hanzo right now, though. There are so many other things at stake. 

Echo sits primly near Mei, legs crossed at the ankle and posture straight as a board. She doesn’t look anything like her maker when she does it — Mina had better things to do than practice sitting like a beauty queen — but it still reminds him of her. He remembers Mina showing her videos to learn from so that she’d fit in among the dignitaries that funneled through the old Overwatch HQ. Her perfect manners and feminine mannerisms usually set them at ease, a non-threatening demeanor that signaled respectability to the sort of people charged with deciding omnics’ fates. He wonders what Mina would make of Echo becoming an agent. 

Baptiste leans against Angela’s desk, long legs stretched out in front of him while he reads over her notes. He’s less self-conscious about treating Jesse as a puzzle, but it is a pleasant surprise to realize he’s worried too. Lúcio is the last to arrive, with his hair pulled high into a bun and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. It’s a surprise to see, and he’s cute like that. Baptiste clearly agrees, mouth pulling into a faint smile that gets stronger when Lúcio sits on the desk next to him, legs swinging before he settles. 

Angela’s already briefed the others, but now that they’re all here, they can really begin. She briskly goes over the gist of the problem with Lúcio, but the downside to having shown up last is that Angela no longer has the patience to let him process it before moving forward. 

“So what are _we_ doing here?” Baptiste asks, distractedly rubbing a hand between Lúcio’s shoulders. Lúcio is still staring from person to person like he expects them to reveal it’s a practical joke. 

“The problem has clearly eluded my own expertise. It is time for fresh eyes. Jesse is physically quite sound, and I have double-checked my conclusions by running all his data past Athena. She hasn’t spotted anything amiss.” Angela sighs. It’s obvious she can tell as easily as Jesse can that no one gathered here thinks they’re up to the task. “Ideally, we would have a team of medical researchers. I have medics and researchers. It will have to do.” 

“Nobody _has_ to,” Jesse adds, a little too loudly. He clears his throat. “But I’d appreciate you keepin’ it to yourself, regardless.”

No one leaves. All of them are interested enough in the case and in his well-being that they don’t consider leaving a viable alternative. It’s probably just his overwhelmed state, but Jesse sniffs once and has to pretend to have something in his eye. Everyone else politely pretends to believe him. 

“Does anyone else know?” Mei asks. 

“Hanzo knows. Uh, just him though.” Jesse scratches at the back of his neck and pointedly doesn’t look in the direction of either of the men who might be fucking Hanzo’s brother. Mei’s head tilts, though. There are wheels turning there, which might be worse in the long run. Mei is a sweet, gentle soul, but even she has a devious streak. Jesse figures elaborating is weirder than not, so he resists the defensive urge to explain anything further. 

“You say you can hear and see things? Any other senses?” Lúcio asks, leaning forward in fascination even before Jesse begins to answer. 

“Yeah, sight and sound. No taste, no smell. Sometimes touch? Or it’s more like I know the person _is_ touching something. It’s not as intense as the sight or sound.” He clears his throat and quickly diverts from that topic before he embarrasses himself too much. “And feelings. Feelings most of all.”

“Okay, sight, sound, some touch, lots of feelings.” Lúcio scribbles notes onto his tablet, then he asks, “Is that everything?” 

“Well, outright thoughts obviously. Um. They’re not always whole thoughts. Turns out people don’t usually think in coherent sentences.” Jesse shrugs.

“Anything else you can think of?”

He doesn’t know if Lúcio’s only being thorough or what, but Jesse adds, “I don’t know if this is what you’re after but… dragons?”

Lúcio glances up from his tablet. Everyone else does too. “How?”

“Genji and Hanzo hear ’em, or feel ’em or— I don’t know, that part’s hard to describe. And I hear what Genji and Hanzo hear.”

Baptiste sits back, tapping his stylus against his tablet while he collects his thoughts. “Are you sure about that?”

Jesse wants to object. He thinks at first that Baptiste is challenging an experience he’s never had to live through. Then he realizes what the question is actually intended to mean: he wants to know if Jesse is hearing them through the Shimadas or if he’s hearing them the way he hears people’s thoughts. “No, I just… assumed.”

Baptiste only makes a note of it, adding to some sort of checklist on his tablet, but Angela huffs, brow furrowed. Baptiste glances at her, and a strange, silent exchange passes between them, like they’re the mind readers. The only thing Jesse can sense is that there is some long-standing argument between them.

Her shoulders slump in surrender, and she scratches out a long, angry note to herself. “What’s the problem?” Jesse asks.

“The _problem_ is that I have been looking for wholly scientific explanations. Things based on previously studied phenomena and related theory. There is no research about _dragons.”_ She heaves a sigh, rubbing a finger along her nose. “If you are able to sense them directly, it means we now have to consider the possible interference of,” she takes a deep breath and makes a face as if the very word pains her, “magic.”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Echo quotes. She probably assumes it’s helpful. It isn’t.

Winston is more useful. “It’s best to keep an open mind, but Jesse’s hearing them may say more about the dragons’ sentience than about his condition. It only makes sense to begin with the most obvious explanations before making it complicated.”

Angela is bravely holding it together. It’s difficult enough for her to accept the existence of dragons at all, even having seen them with her own two eyes. Jesse’s proud that she manages to school her expression before she continues. “So be it. We follow the current trajectory, exhaust all possibilities there, and if that fails, we call in our resident dragon experts.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to bloomingcnidarians and YourAverageJoke for the betaing and the hand-holding.

#

Every time he meets with the research team, they’re there for hours. Hours locked in a room with six others — with five whose thoughts compete for space inside Jesse’s mind. He answers questions about his health, about his history, even about Deadeye, although that last tests Angela’s patience with so-called superstition nearly as much as the dragons do. It’s exhausting to answer all their questions, and it’s worse with even _more_ rattling around inside his head, all the ones left unspoken and discarded. 

It’s late by the time they finish tonight. All he wants is a smoke aund time as far away from people as possible. It’s different enough from their former schedule that he no longer considers there might be a risk when he steps outside. By the time he realizes his mistake, it’s too late. He doesn’t have a smooth way to escape before Hanzo looks his way.

“Uh, hey. I can…” Jesse jerks his thumb back the way he came.

Hanzo scoffs and shakes his head, dropping it again to light a cigarette. The guilt he feels about it rolls off him; he’s forgotten to shield himself. “What did you say before?” he mutters around the end caught between his lips. Then he smirks and blows out a stream of smoke. “‘Outdoors is big enough for the both of us’,” he drawls, which is how Jesse learns that Hanzo’s impression of him sounds like it’s drowning in a bayou somewhere. It’s also how he learns Hanzo’s kind of drunk. It explains the slippery feeling of his thoughts, at least. 

“Ain’t what I sound like.” Taking up the argument is easier than talking about any of the other things. The discomfort shimmering beneath the alcohol haze tells him Hanzo feels more or less the same. Jesse’s not sure where to sit or stand, or how much space is simply maintaining a respectful distance versus looking like he’s _trying_ not to get too close. He’s overthinking it, because he can’t trust himself to understand any of what Hanzo wants. “You mind sharin’?”

Hanzo doesn’t quite look at him, but he does pass the sake gourd Jesse’s way. Sake is usually too sweet for his tastes, but this one’s better than he expected. If this were anyone else, this would be where Jesse asks about the brand or some other small talk to get things rolling. Instead he wordlessly hands it back and watches Hanzo take another sip.

When he finishes that, Hanzo glares out as if the sea has done something to personally offend him. His thoughts seem to move in time with the distant waves, restless but rhythmic. The embarrassment is still there, the frustration and injured pride, but it’s all muted, more distant now that some time has passed. Something Jesse can’t name twists inside them both. The only thing that stops him from issuing another apology is the memory of Hanzo’s mixed reaction to the last one. It’s tempting though, if only because Hanzo is more relaxed now. Even his scowl isn’t as bad as it could be. 

Jesse lights a cigar and tries to enjoy the quiet night, even if Hanzo sitting right there makes him feel restless. He wants to try asking again; it’s always possible that Hanzo’s only lonely in a general sense, but Jesse wouldn’t mind knowing for sure if the real problem was in the _way_ he asked before. He can’t quite make up his mind before Hanzo breaks the silence, shoulders hunching up by his ears until he suddenly lets them drop with a quiet sigh. “It will pass.”

“What’s that?” Jesse starts, surprised to realize he’s been staring, eyes tracing the sharp line of a cheekbone, lingering on the slight pout of his lips. Hanzo can sense it too, but he thinks it’s only concern, maybe pity.

“It was… a convenient vessel into which to pour certain energies.” 

It’s such a vague and strange way of putting it that Jesse’s ability is the only reason he can even _guess_ what Hanzo’s getting at. “Convenient,” he repeats quietly. 

“Safe,” Hanzo corrects. He won’t look at Jesse, and even inside, the slick slide of the alcohol across his thoughts makes him unreadable. “It was safe.” There’s a bitter laugh like a cough. “I thought I was cultivating something in the privacy of my own mind. Naturally only I could have the great fortune to direct all that toward someone capable of reading another’s thoughts.”

“Ah.” It makes sense. It’s why people thirst after movie stars. It’s why Jesse spent most of his twenties infatuated with folks who were never going to look his way. No investment, no work, no risk if the answer’s always going to be no.

Hanzo nods as if he heard it. “Yes. It was safe. And then you _appeared_ out here and it was no longer safe, but I had made a habit and I thought… I suppose you know what I thought after that.” He clears his throat. “So. It will pass. No need to worry or… whatever it is you are doing.”

 _And what if I don’t want it to pass?_ His throat squeezes tight around the words. He counts three separate times that he almost asks it. In the end, he decides it’s selfish. Whatever else the confession holds, it’s obvious Hanzo only wants to move past the whole mortifying experience. It’s right there in the words, but it’s reverberating in his mind too. A quiet hope that Jesse will let him return to some semblance of normal is the only thing legible through the swirl of his thoughts. 

“Alright. No worryin’.”

“And no more propositions.” Hanzo’s face is definitely red, and there’s a dull throb of hurt as if from somewhere far away. 

“That’s—” The temptation rises again. _Speak now, or forever hold your peace,_ Jesse thinks ruefully. But Hanzo’s made it clear he _wants_ to let it go. If Hanzo felt anything more for him, it’s been marred by the way he handled it. “Got it. Can do.” He ducks his head, blows smoke away from Hanzo in order to hide his face for a moment. When he’s collected himself, he forces his body to relax and he puts on a smile, gesturing for the sake again. Hanzo passes it to him without another word.

He sits then, and he doesn’t say any of the things he’s thinking. Instead he changes the subject, and Hanzo gamely plays along. At least it’s a relief to be reminded that Hanzo is a pleasant enough drinking partner. Eventually the smile isn’t quite so false.

* * *

His mornings are quieter now. Whether Hanzo suspects on his own or has simply chosen that this is part of his moving on, Jesse no longer wakes up in the middle of Hanzo taking care of himself. He only wakes to his own alarm, followed shortly by Reinhardt’s Hasselhoff playlist. It does make it easier; he’s not sure what he would do if he had to experience another of those fantasies now. 

Hanzo confirmed that he never intended to act on any of those thoughts. They were always deliberately relegated to the realm of fantasy, a private stress relief valve. It was Jesse who made it out to be more. At most, it was only ever a brief infatuation. The way Hanzo put it, it was likely even less than that — shallow attraction mixed up with some general loneliness, nothing to do with Jesse himself. If he wasn’t here, it would have been someone else.

He contents himself with the knowledge that he at least gets to return to enjoying Hanzo’s company. He _does_ actually enjoy it, too, when he can ignore the twisting in his guts or the occasional pang of vestigial attraction from Hanzo, that persistent reminder of missed opportunities. _It will pass_ becomes Jesse’s mantra.

Tonight, Hanzo is more animated than usual, which, in his case, means he gestures once in a while instead of sitting still as a statue. “He survived the fall. Landed in a swimming pool. I had to jump in after him, fully clothed.”

“Bet that was a sight,” Jesse says with a snort, and he forcibly banishes any thoughts of Hanzo dripping with water.

“I’m sure. Perhaps that was what caused him to slip when he left the pool.” Hanzo grins against the mouth of his beer bottle. “He hit his head and died instantly. I never even touched him.”

“That’s cheatin’! I asked about your dumbest _kill,_ not the dumbest time you witnessed a man die.”

“I was unaware you were such a stickler for the rules.” Hanzo’s dark eyes flick his way, and there’s a sly curve to his mouth. 

“Some rules are stupid,” Jesse says, jaw aching from the force of maintaining his easy grin, “but my rules ain’t.”

Hanzo doesn’t have anything smartass to say about that, but there’s a hum of something like satisfaction inside him. He’s content like this: him and Jesse, sitting in the open air with a sea breeze, drinks in hand and the smell of Jesse’s cigars lingering in the space between them. 

It’s enough. It has to be enough.

“Has there been any progress on your condition?” It’s nice that Hanzo’s concerned, but the question does introduce a harsh note of resentment into the evening. It’s a reminder that it has been weeks since they brought new expertise on board, and the closest to forward momentum they’ve achieved has been weeding out what _doesn’t_ work.

In the meantime, Hanzo has gotten better at keeping his mental defenses up, even if it can’t always keep up with how much stronger Jesse’s ability has gotten. Jesse has improved at tuning everyone out too, but he can’t fault anybody for worrying about their privacy. Jesse doesn’t like being able to see everyone’s business any more than Hanzo likes being seen. If it weren’t for this stupid ability, he never would have suspected Hanzo of anything, and he wouldn’t have gotten his hopes up, and he wouldn’t have gotten hurt. 

On the other hand, he wouldn’t have gotten to know Hanzo either. He can’t say he regrets that part. He wonders how it might have gone if it weren’t for the mind-reading. If they had gotten to know each other on _normal_ terms, would it have gone somewhere then? 

He shuts his eyes, rubbing a hand across his forehead. At least it passes for frustration with the experiments. “Nope. Just a lot of pokin’ and proddin’.” 

Hanzo feels wary, not quite able to keep it shielded. It feels like he’s bracing for impact when he asks, “Have you considered that you may need to plan for the long term?” 

“I’d really rather not.” It’s the same thing he’s told Angie every time she’s asked. 

Unlike Angie, Hanzo chuckles at the answer, and the sounds slides pleasantly over Jesse’s skin, bringing up goosebumps along his arm. “I suppose what I mean is that your other teammates may want to be apprised of the situation.”

 _“You_ are tellin’ me to open up to everybody?”

That makes Hanzo laugh too; it’s an improvement on what it could have been a few weeks ago, when any reminder that Jesse knows things about the way Hanzo operates internally would be unwelcome. “Don’t they also deserve to know their privacy is less private than they believed? Even if they can do nothing about it?” Hanzo isn’t so much the sharing-and-caring type, but it makes sense that even he would suddenly learn empathy after his own humiliation. “Consider the possibilities for our strategy sessions, at least.”

Ah. There’s the Hanzo he knows and— well, the Hanzo he’s getting to know. “Never thought you’d be the voice of reason,” Jesse teases, and he tries not to let Hanzo’s answering smirk dig any deeper under his skin.

* * *

With Winston’s permission, they begin the nine o’clock meeting with an announcement about Jesse’s newfound talent. Lena giggles before she remembers that Winston isn’t very good at jokes, practical or otherwise. Genji’s head simply tilts, his mind almost as still and unreadable as his faceplate. Brigitte and Hana’s faces are nearly identical shades of red, for nearly identical reasons. Torbjörn mutters under his breath about knowing Jesse’s never been trustworthy. Reinhardt, strangely, is unfazed.

For about a minute, Jesse thinks it’s going to go easily. Then the room erupts. 

“How long have you known?”

“What am I thinking _right now?”_

“You got that cybernetic implant I warned you about, didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Oh my God, this explains so much.”

“Do you watch me pee?”

The cacophony threatens to overwhelm him; in combination with the feedback in his mind, he thinks his brain might explode. Panicked, he looks to Winston, to Angela, to Hanzo. Angela finally raises her voice. “One at a time!”

It’s not the longest hour of his life, but it certainly ranks high on the list. He has to answer more questions and endure more scrutiny than he has ever been comfortable with. But after the initial chaos resulting from the announcement, everyone behaves themselves well enough. Most of them talk to Angela about how to restore some of their privacy; she doesn’t have the time to teach them, but Zenyatta suggests adapting some of his meditation methods to the task. 

Nobody takes it in stride, exactly. At the end of the day, though, this is a group of people accustomed to spirit dragons, a talking gorilla, and a woman who regularly zips through time. It’s just one more bit of weird shit to grow used to. They’ll settle into it eventually.

* * *

These are his mornings, the new normal. He wakes just before the Hasselhoff playlist begins. Tunes it out enough to get himself off if he’s in the mood; he does so entirely alone these days, but it’s an easy way to handle the frustration that comes from trying to be Hanzo’s friend until the feelings finally blow over. He brushes his teeth. He takes a shower.

Breakfast means coffee, eggs, toast, sausage. Orange juice. Vitamins if Angie’s watching, but she usually isn’t, because Mei’s there to distract her. They even sit with him sometimes, his weird behavior toward Mei now more or less explained and forgiven.

A couple times a week, breakfast now also means Hanzo is there, which Jesse suspects has a lot to do with his refusal to start his mornings the same way he did before he knew Jesse could read minds. Most mornings, it’s best if they do their own things, because frankly there’s no way to handle either Hanzo or the feelings he evokes before two cups of coffee. 

Mei doesn’t know much about that, though, and she probably wouldn’t give a shit if she did. This morning while they’re still waiting on Angela to join them, she waves Hanzo down. “Did you ever remember the name of that book you told me about?” she asks. 

“Unfortunately, no.” She gestures for him to sit, and he takes the spot across from Jesse, lips tightening into an almost apologetic smile before his attention shifts back to Mei. “I’m sure it will come to me at a time so inconvenient I won’t be able to write it down for you.” 

“Such a pessimist,” she teases. “But you’re right. I have all the best ideas when I’m jogging and can’t find anything to write with.”

“I always get mine in the shower,” Jesse says.

“Ah, me too.” 

Jesse nearly scalds himself inhaling his coffee, then he devolves into a coughing fit that has them both staring. It’s embarrassing, requires too many napkins, and makes it harder to taste the rest of his food. He hasn’t told anyone about _that_ particular event — nor the morning ritual he and Hanzo previously shared — so at least they both buy it when he wheezes, “Wrong pipe.”

Hanzo and Mei make small talk, and Jesse doesn’t watch Hanzo eat his breakfast, because that would be weird. He does know that Hanzo usually has rice with an egg on top, although it varies occasionally. This morning, there are two bowls. There’s the rice, and there’s the instant miso soup he’s still stirring, creating a hypnotic vortex of previously dehydrated tofu and seaweed, which Jesse pretends he’s watching instead of Hanzo’s hands. Jesse also nudges a second mug of coffee toward him. It was going to be for Angie, but she can get her own whenever she deigns to make an appearance.

Barring the less common addition of Hanzo, this morning is much like the others. Mei’s thoughts fade in and out. She regularly forgets to shield them, although she’s good enough at maintaining it when she does try. 

Hana sits halfway across the room with her phone like she always has, but Jesse can no longer hear her thoughts. She’s one of the ones who took to it naturally. After reading her mind for so long, Jesse doesn’t need any more reminders that she’s got all the discipline of a career soldier hiding under the cutesy bunnies and awkward teen crush and shit talk, but if he did need proof, there it lies. 

Brigitte, in contrast, might be the worst at it. “Papa, please,” she says in a hush as she and Torbjörn enter the dining room. She’s too flustered to even try to hide her thoughts, which means that Jesse can hear every word of their exchange. Torbjörn has taken to wearing a helmet made of aluminum foil, and he’s trying to thrust another just like it at his daughter. She flinches and keeps glancing Jesse’s way. 

_—sorry, sorry, sorry—_

Jesse pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. Egg yolk drips onto his toast. “Huh.”

_—know how he is—he’ll get over—_

Hanzo and Mei glance up from their food. “What is it?” Hanzo has to look over his shoulder as Jesse directs their attention to the scene. 

“She’s thinking _at_ me.” At Hanzo’s raised eyebrow, Jesse leans in like any of this is a secret any more. “Nobody’s done that outside the lab. They’ve thought about things intentionally, you know, like you did when—” There’s a flood of guilt Hanzo’s shield can’t hide, and curiosity buzzing off of Mei. Jesse clears his throat. “But that was still sorta passive, right? Like you were waitin’ for me to come look at something. Nobody really tries to push it at me like that.”

“Hm.” Hanzo shovels rice into his mouth while he thinks about it. “Add this to your list of strategic advantages,” he suggests with a shrug that feels strangely practiced, then he returns his attention to Mei.

Angela arrives, and while she has Mei distracted, an image bursts into Jesse’s mind: it’s an old piece of art, a nude woman reclined, embraced by octopus limbs. One of their faces is buried between her legs. It’s so vivid it feels like someone slapped him with one of those tentacles.

Hanzo’s chewing can’t quite hide his smirk.

* * *

“You two have been getting close,” Angela says as she begins to pump the blood pressure cuff. 

He doesn’t need to ask who she means. “Yep. Gettin’ to be friends.” He tries not to let it sound like it sucks as much as it does, but she doesn’t look convinced.

“Are you?”

“You tryin’ to get my blood pressure up to fuck with your test?” Jesse grumbles.

“No. Listen, I am breaking my own rule here, so just know I expect payment in alcohol _very_ soon. But have you considered the possibility that you are misreading his reaction because you are overthinking it? I have known you a very long time. I know you understand people, but I have seen how obtuse you become when you are… invested in some outcome.” Whatever’s showing on his face, it makes her sigh. “If I said to you, ‘Jesse, I thought Mei liked me but now I am not sure,’ what would you tell me to do?”

He doesn’t want to answer. The arch of Angela’s brow as she pulls off the cuff forces it out of him. “I’d tell you to talk to her. It’s not the same, though.”

“It is _exactly that thing.”_

“He told me to let him move on. I’m doin’ that.”

She grunts quietly, annoyed. “Fine. You are just friends, and I am sure that is making you very happy.” He’s almost certain the light she shines in his eye is not necessary for this particular checkup. “I’m glad you are _such_ good _friends_ now, because it is time for you to ask for his help.”

Jesse sits still to process it. Angie’s mouth is turned down and she’s mostly well shielded, but he can still pick up her frustration. “You think you can handle talkin’ about dragons without busting an artery?”

“I will manage.”

* * *

The lab felt crowded enough before. The addition of Genji and Hanzo makes the walls feel like they’re closing in, and Jesse’s still not sure if it’s the size of the space or his nerves sucking the air out of the room.

“As you know, the source of Jesse’s abilities remains a mystery. We have nearly reached the end of our combined scientific knowledge.” Angela sighs, and she does a pretty good job of concealing how very upset she is with the prospect of resorting to supernatural explanations. “We are hoping the two of you might enlighten us about the dragons. Particularly anything that could tell us why Jesse can hear _them_ as well as people.”

Genji and Hanzo both are talented at blocking Jesse out, but that doesn’t stop him from seeing Hanzo blanch. All three dragons begin their rumbling, as if acknowledging them brought their attention. Genji stays impassive behind his mask, but the fingers of Hanzo’s left hand twitch and curl into a fist. 

“There are texts,” Genji says. “Back in Hanamura.” He shakes his head, laughing ruefully. “I was not a very good student. I am not the one who could recite them from memory. But I certainly don’t recall anything that would be relevant.”

Every head in the room swivels to Hanzo, who is only staring straight ahead, just beyond Jesse’s shoulder. “There are accounts of dragons enhancing our senses. But I do not think…” His brow furrows. “Those are still _typical_ senses. Sight, hearing, smell. Presumed to make dragons superior hunters, if they belonged to this world.” He shakes his head. “Perhaps I misremember, or reading with this new insight will reveal something.” Then, haltingly, he adds, “We could retrieve them.” 

Jesse doesn’t know what to say to that. He understands, from what he knows of both Shimadas and from the discomfort slipping through the cracks of both their walls now, that a mission like that would take a lot out of both of them. “I don’t want anybody riskin’ themselves for me. ’Specially not for some dried up old books.” 

“Well,” Genji says, “they have also been digitized. It wouldn’t take much to make copies of the files.” He chuckles. “It’s not as if we have never broken in before.”

“We would only be taking what is rightfully ours,” Hanzo adds. It’s weird as hell to hear them agreeing with one another so readily. Outwardly Genji only shows the barest tilt of his head back toward his brother; inside, pushing against the mental barrier, it’s clear that he’s as surprised as Jesse is by Hanzo’s insistence. “How quickly can we begin preparations?”

Winston is just as taken aback by the hasty suggestion. “We have no operations scheduled soon. Of course, I’ll have to look at the calendar, have Athena double-check the flight system, put together a team…”

Angela interrupts as politely as she can. “Before we get too ahead of ourselves, I would like to ask some questions about the dragons.” As with all Angie’s questionnaires, the things she asks don’t make much sense to Jesse, but Hanzo and Genji answer as patiently as it seems they know how. As far as Jesse can tell, they learn nothing of value there. Something about the stiffness in Hanzo’s body makes him wonder if there’s something he’s not saying.

Then Angela asks him to describe “hearing” the dragons. Hanzo visibly tenses again, but Genji simply crosses his arms, waiting, while Jesse tries to focus. All three dragons are rumbling again, and somehow he’s at the center of their attention. It would be uncomfortable enough, but their audience certainly makes it weirder. Lúcio is leaning so far forward that he might fall off the desk he’s chosen as his seat. 

He starts with the less-weird one. “So they don’t… feel like people? Not the way everyone else does? Took me forever to even figure out what I was sensing. But um. One of them feels like… it’s just curious and kind of excited? This is fun, I guess, because it’s something new?”

“That sounds like mine,” Genji says.

Jesse flinches, because he figures he should have known that, given how the other two make him feel. “Then one of them is— I don’t know how to explain, but sometimes I think about you—” he gestures at Hanzo “—havin’ a guard dog, and it’s kinda doin’ it right now, like it’s lookin’ out for some threat.” Jesse gets the strong sense that _he_ is the threat, but he doesn’t know how to say as much without making things any more awkward than they already are.

Hanzo clears his throat. “Yes, that is about right, very well done. I suppose that is sufficient evidence to prove he _is_ sensing them.”

“That was only two,” says Angela. “Jesse, please, continue.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hanzo outright fidget before, but it’s about as close as a man can get and still maintain any pretense at dignity. However uncomfortable the other dragon’s making Jesse, he doesn’t think it’s as bad as Hanzo seems to think it is. “The other doesn’t— It doesn’t make much sense. It just feels like it wants to, uh, eat me?” 

He knows they’re the wrong words the moment they come out of his mouth, and now _he_ would desperately like to squirm. Hanzo’s face is beet red. Genji coughs and takes a conspicuous half-step to the side, putting an extra few inches between himself and his brother. 

“I could be wrong,” Jesse says quickly. “Y’know, sometimes it’s hard to put these things into words. They ain’t even human.”

Angela won’t even look at him. She’s eyeing Hanzo, suspicion all over her face. “Is that a threat? Do these creatures pose a danger—”

Genji cuts her off with an extraordinarily loud clearing of his throat; everyone in the room knows Genji’s not built to need it. “If my brother’s dragons were a danger to someone here, I would know too. They aren’t. Also? I would like to leave.”

Angela blinks in surprise. “I suppose we have reached the end of our prepared questions,” she says slowly.

“Good. I will go begin planning for our return to Hanamura. I would appreciate some help.” He directs the last toward Baptiste and Lúcio.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t think of more things to ask,” Angela protests, oblivious. 

Mei is a lot more astute. She rests a hand gently on Angela’s arm. “They can wait one more day, can’t they? I’m starving!” The puppy eyes are a masterful stroke. Jesse’s impressed.

As folks file out, Winston shifts his weight awkwardly, but he eventually declares that they can’t get anything done if everyone’s just going to leave like that, so he too disappears. 

“Oh. Are we dismissed?” Echo asks. 

“Suppose so,” Jesse tells her. 

She flits away, humming to herself. Jesse would leave too, but Hanzo’s still here. It’s like Jesse’s waiting for permission to move, but Hanzo’s too busy staring at the floor.

Right when Jesse’s about to give up and go, Hanzo finally opens his mouth. “Not ‘eat’.”

“What’s that?”

Hanzo takes a deep breath. “She doesn’t want to _eat_ you.”

“Oh.” Jesse’s face is uncomfortably warm. “Yeah, I uh, got that. A little too late, but. Yep.”

“I am trying to do the right thing,” Hanzo grits out. “But it is very difficult with this ceaseless parade of humiliation. Do you enjoy it?”

 _“No,_ why would you—”

“Never mind.” He rubs at the bridge of his nose, and the dragons still rumble around him, confusing in their myriad inhuman desires. There’s something almost like the purring coming from one of them; Jesse thinks it’s meant to be _soothing,_ of all things.

“What do you mean about doin’ the right thing?”

Hanzo squares his shoulders and forces himself to look Jesse in the face. “I don’t have an answer to your problem, but I _do_ wonder if it is related. The dragons like you. They think you are… kin?” Jesse pulls a face, and Hanzo almost manages to laugh. “Not family, but alike. If you were a Shimada, you would have your own dragon.”

“Is this where you reveal you got some psychic powers along with two huge fairytale beasts?”

Hanzo snorts. “No, but I do have a connection to the place they are from. And they think you do too. So they are… intrigued.”

“That is one hell of a euphemism.”

Hanzo’s laugh is strained, but it’s a laugh. “Yes, well. If you have never considered your connection to the spirit world, perhaps that is the line of inquiry you should pursue.” 

“There’s Deadeye, but I’m assumin’ that’s not what you mean.” Hanzo pauses, before he confirms it with a slow shake of his head. “Thanks, I guess. Is that all?”

“We have accounts of people who were cut off from their dragons. Sometimes as punishment by the family. Sometimes their dragon abandoned them. It does not sound pleasant.”

“I’d do it anyway.”

Hanzo furrows his brow, and whatever he thinks of that, he keeps to himself. “If there are details in those files…” 

“You could recreate it?”

“Maybe. And if we can’t, there is some excellent guidance on learning to live with the dragons that may transfer to your circumstances.”

It’s a lot of maybes, but Jesse’s been working with so little for so long that it still feels like he can breathe a bit easier. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Hanzo raises an eyebrow at him. “Oh. Right. The, uh, ‘ceaseless parade of humiliation’.”

“That,” Hanzo says with a sharp snap of the final consonant, “and it is only a possibility. There is nothing less abstract to offer, and it may be a dead end.”

“Yeah, well. Been hittin’ a lot of dead ends lately. What’s one more?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out as bitter as it does. Hanzo looks away, discomfort battering at the mental shield. Discomfort and something like pity. It curdles in Jesse’s stomach. Maybe that’s why he asks, “Is it just the dragons?”

Hanzo doesn’t answer with words, but he jolts, his body going stiff. 

“You said they liked me, but you weren’t gonna say that in front of the rest of them, were you? So what about you?”

“We are friends.” It sounds like there’s more he’s going to say, but he never bothers to finish it.

“Is that it?”

“Why?” Hanzo looks trapped, like he would bolt if he could, like it’s a force of will to stay put. “You already know the answer, and I asked you to let it go.”

“You asked for no more propositions. This isn’t one. That was the problem before, wasn’t it? Made it sound like all I was interested in was sex. If I’d asked you on a date, would it have made a difference?”

Hanzo’s eyes shut on a defeated-sounding sigh. When he speaks, it sounds like it’s been dragged out of him. “Yes.” 

The obvious pain it causes sucks the wind out of Jesse’s sails. Confirmation of just how stupid he’s been fights with the the rising giddiness. “And if I asked you now? Would that make a difference?” 

There’s not an immediate answer, but with Hanzo’s mental defenses cracking under the pressure, Jesse’s more confident in his hunch about what’s wrong this time. However vulnerable it makes Jesse feel, he’s still putting Hanzo in the position to be the one rejected with the way he’s been asking, like Jesse’s just satisfying some curiosity and could still turn him down any time. After all that talk about what felt _safe,_ after putting Hanzo through the wringer, exposing and embarrassing him over and over, maybe Jesse owes him. 

“I mean,” he tries again, “I would like to. Ask you out, or ask for _more,_ at least. I would’ve before if I’d… This shit ain’t an exact science. All I knew with any certainty was that you might’ve been willing to sleep with me, so that’s what I offered. It’s not the only thing I wanted, though. Then or now. Especially not now. So I know you said you wanna put it behind you, but I’m selfish and hopin’ that’s been as hard for you as it’s been for me.”

Hanzo’s face goes through a series of rapid changes, as complicated and unknowable as his muted thoughts. Most of all, he looks pained. It’s not a promising look. Jesse wonders if he pushed too fast, or if he was right after all that Hanzo’s been successful at moving on. Maybe Jesse let the window of opportunity close.

Both their comm devices go off simultaneously, a vibration in Jesse’s pocket and a chime coming from Hanzo’s. Relieved to have something to look at other than Hanzo’s conflicted face, Jesse fishes it out quickly. There’s a message from Baptiste waiting, CCed to several people on base:

_Hello, Hanamura team! We’re cleared to begin preparations. Want to head out first thing in the morning if possible. Please respond with the earliest you can be ready to leave._

There’s a ding from Hanzo’s comm as Genji’s answer appears, then one from Reinhardt. 

Jesse sighs, and he looks up to find Hanzo looking back. “Clearly we got other shit to worry about, so. Take your time with that answer, alright? No need to rush it. I know I put you through a lot, so I’m… Please, give it some thought.”

Hanzo’s face contorts one more time, but he nods. Before Jesse can retreat with his tail between his legs, Hanzo finally speaks. “Ask again when the mission is over.” 

The hope that inspires leaves something cruel twisting in his gut right alongside it, but it’s not without mercy. It means there’s a deadline. Something stable, some promise that, if nothing else, Jesse can _know_ something soon enough, rather than being strung along with no end in sight. It’s enough for now. Enough to let him focus on other things. He has packing to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to mataglap for betaing this chapter!

Jesse has been to Hanamura more than once. Back in Blackwatch, they kept an eye on the family same as they did most big name criminal organizations. Having been before doesn’t make it less impressive now. 

The cherry trees are in full bloom, clusters of pink and white all over the city. They’re especially vivid in the district housing the Shimada family home. It feels funny to be here in broad daylight, but at least in this part of town, a foreigner is less conspicuous than either of the former heirs. Even with the haircut and the piercings, Hanzo’s face would cause him to stick out nearly as much as a cyborg walking the streets.

Given the season, it’s easy enough for Jesse to pass as a tourist here for the cherry blossoms. He came with a camera and everything. The weather’s still cool enough to excuse the leather jacket that hides Peacekeeper and obscures the bulk of his body armor. He has taken a lot of stupid risks in his life, but walking unarmed into hostile territory isn’t going to be one of them, undercover or not. 

With the gates thrown wide open, it’s possible to get a good look inside, but there are men standing guard to prevent anyone walking beyond that point. He smiles and gets in their faces to ask about tours of the compound, sprinkling in some butchered Japanese to really drive home the shtick. 

“This is a private home,” one of them sneers. He speaks the better English of the two. “We do not do tours.”

“That’s a real shame. Y’all got the prettiest darn  _ sa-koo-ra  _ trees I’ve seen in this whole  _ itchy.”  _ A quiet snort in his ear alerts him that Hanzo is paying attention. “Think I could stand right there,” he points to a spot with a better vantage of the grounds beyond the gate, “just for one little picture?  _ Onay-guy-shee-masoo?” _

One of the guards winces. The other simply says, “No.” 

It’s blunt and to the point, and both of them are starting to puff up in a way that should probably intimidate a casual tourist. He considers pushing it, seeing how much rudeness the idiot American act can excuse, but their thoughts radiate a violent restlessness. They’re two bored, dangerous men with some tempting entertainment right in front of them. He doesn’t need to risk them laying hands on him and noticing the body armor. 

He steps back like he’s nervous, hands showing so they know he doesn’t mean any harm. “Well.  _ Areeguh-toe  _ anyway.”

As Jesse leaves, Hanzo mutters through the comm.  _ “Why are you like this?” _

Despite all that’s left hanging between them, Jesse can’t stop his grin. He pulls out his phone and pretends to dial, waiting for what would be a few rings. Then he asks, “What are you and the kids thinkin’ about for dinner, honey? I’m standin’ right outside this ramen shop, and I bet it’s got some of your favorites.”

Hanzo is quiet for long enough that Jesse has time to really process the  _ honey,  _ then to let himself be distracted by the buzz of strangers’ thoughts as they pass.  _ “It won’t be any good by the time you get it here,”  _ Hanzo says stiffly. Jesse’s throat gets tight enough he has to clear it, but Hanzo interrupts the noise like he’s in a hurry to spit out the rest.  _ “There is a shop nearby, if you still want ramen.” _

The half hour it takes him to get back to their makeshift base is plenty of time to contemplate what the fuck that means, and to talk himself both into and out of any satisfying conclusions. Their operation is situated in a cramped apartment not far from the shopping district. It’s got enough foot traffic to excuse their comings and goings. 

Once Jesse arrives, he produces the few photos he managed to take of the security setup around the compound. Baptiste uses his tablet to enlarge the pictures and display them on a holoscreen. 

“Only two guards, customary positions,” Hanzo murmurs, flat and robotic as he settles into work mode. 

Genji gestures at a woman loitering in one of the pictures. “This one, too.” He identifies another, and Hanzo locates one more. That’s at least three hiding in plain clothes.

“Seems like a lot for any normal day,” Jesse says.

“They are paranoid these days. It is not enough to be worrisome.” Hanzo and Genji study the pictures, but they don’t spot anyone else they think belongs to the family. Hanzo nods, satisfied. “We can expect basic security. Nothing too challenging.”

There are still nerves radiating off him and Genji both, but even muted as they are, Jesse figures it has more to do with the context than the size of the security team. The mission itself is easy; it’s the going home that’s hard. All the more reason to distract them with dinner while they wait for full dark. 

Genji begs off the trip to the ramen shop, and Baptiste, with a quick glance around the room and at Genji in particular, says he doesn’t want to leave without trying sushi in its home country. Lena insists she needs a nap before she has to prep for the flight back, and Reinhardt volunteers to stay behind to watch her back while she sleeps. Besides, he wants sushi too, if Genji and Baptiste are willing to bring some back with them. 

“Great. Guess it’s just you and me, partner,” Jesse announces, probably too loudly. There’s no way to back out now without drawing attention to the matter, and maybe they’ve  _ both  _ reached their quota on embarrassing situations. Hanzo conspicuously avoids eye contact with everyone in the room as he pulls his jacket on. “Lead the way.”

The walk to the ramen shop is brief, but the streets are beginning to bustle now that evening’s coming on. Jesse has to focus on his careful breathing in order to ignore the crowd. The mental noise of a mob this size threatens him with utter insanity. It’s easier once they’re in the restaurant, which is a vibrant thing barely big enough for the handful of tables inside.

The counter seats are already full, so they’re stuck squeezing into a small table across from one another. It takes several adjustments before their knees are no longer brushing together. In the meantime, he lets Hanzo flag down a server and order for both of them. Hanzo might be blushing, but the light makes it difficult to say, and he’s doing a damn good job of keeping his thoughts under wraps.

They sit in awkward silence until a group walks in, and one of the women glances Jesse’s way. It’s a knee-jerk response to smile at her, and she giggles, and that’s all there is to it, except that Hanzo’s dragons suddenly have their hackles up.

“What—”

“Do you like the city?” Hanzo’s words tumble out, like if he doesn’t ask immediately, he won’t ask at all.

Jesse rarely wishes his cursed powers were stronger, but Hanzo’s body language says he’s antsy, and his thoughts are so distant there may as well be a void where he’s sitting, and Jesse wants to know for sure what any of it means. Relying on his gut hasn’t gotten him too far with Hanzo, and neither has overthinking it, but his best guess is that Hanzo wants him to like Hanamura. It makes perfect sense to him; Jesse might never want to go back to Deadlock Gorge, but he’d still want Hanzo to appreciate it if he ever saw it. “Yeah, it’s a pretty place. I wasn’t lyin’ about the trees, even if I sounded stupid sayin’ it.” 

“Is your pronunciation really that bad?”

“Probably pretty close, but not so bad I couldn’t tell how shitty it sounded.”

“Alarmingly, yours is not the worst I’ve ever heard.”

“I’ll have to work on that then.” Hanzo’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, before he seems to think better of it. “Figures you’d think it was funny.”

“Perhaps. But I am surprised that you seem to enjoy being taken for a fool.”

Jesse doesn’t share the same compunctions about smiling. “You sayin’ you think I’m  _ not  _ a fool? Be careful. That’s almost a compliment.” When Hanzo glances away, Jesse holds back a sigh. “Playin’ the fool gets the job done.”

“I don’t know that I could stomach it.”

“Couldn’t pull it off anyway. Too smart, too dignified.” Jesse makes sure it sounds like teasing, but it’s still the truth.

“Too serious, you mean.” 

Hanzo’s frown wrenches a laugh from Jesse. “Workin’ real hard to prove people wrong, I see.” 

Hanzo doesn’t join in on the joke. Instead he stares down at the table, lips pressed tightly together. Even without the help of his thoughts, Jesse can  _ see  _ the gears turning. Eventually Hanzo straightens and says, “I have not felt so dignified lately.”

Jesse’s guilty blush feels like a fever. “Well, we’re talkin’ about how you come off to other folks. But I promise you nobody’s all that poised on the inside. We’re all messy or embarrassed about shit nobody cares about, hoping no one knows everything in our heads, even when it’s nothin’ to be ashamed of. Only difference between you and everybody else is bad luck and keepin’ the wrong company.”

Dark eyes study Jesse for a moment, but whatever Hanzo might say in response gets lost when the server arrives with their bowls. Jesse thanks her — with much nicer pronunciation this time — and she smiles back, shooting him a second glance as she leaves. One of the dragons surges violently, so fast that Jesse startles, knee knocking into the table from beneath. If she could wrap around him like a boa constrictor, she would. 

Hanzo is as flushed as he feels, mouth drawn tight. “That is them, not me,” he says in a rush. “They do not… operate like we do.” He won’t even look at Jesse.

The sense he’s getting from the dragons is still unsettling, but he can’t help but find this one at least a little funny. “So I shouldn’t assume this has anything to do with your feelings on the matter?”

_ “No,”  _ Hanzo grits out.

Jesse’s not able to entirely hide his amusement, which makes Hanzo’s refusal to look at him a mixed blessing. “If it helps, you can tell ’em they’ve got nothin’ to worry about.” It stops being so funny when he realizes he doesn’t know how welcome any further assurances will be. He steels himself and says it anyway. “Only one person here who’s got my attention, and I doubt they’ll feel so threatened by him.”

That does settle the dragons. There’s still the vague aura of threat, but they’re also slinking back into dormancy, begrudging but appeased. He keeps his smile as suppressed as he can, and he does his best not to draw any conclusions from the incident. 

Hanzo stares at the food as he announces, “Our ramen won’t be good if we do not eat it now.” He glances up. His smirk is more tentative than usual, but present nonetheless. “Let’s see if your skill with chopsticks is any better than your command of the language.” Jesse will take the effort at teasing as a win. 

They eat in silence, and he manages not to spray the whole table with broth, which is about the best he can hope for. Most everyone around them is eating without talking, and they’re doing so rapidly, so he follows suit, assured at least that Hanzo isn’t merely trying to ignore him. He’s been to enough different places in his life that it’s hard to remember the specific rules everywhere, but he  _ is  _ pretty well trained in picking up cues when he’s not leaning into the stereotype.

Hanzo appears pleased enough with it. The awkwardness lingers, but at least none of it seems inspired by Jesse’s inability to behave himself. He’s not convinced Hanzo would care if Jesse made a scene, but it’s nice to do something that feels  _ normal,  _ like enjoying dinner together — even if enjoying it is easier when neither of them speak. 

Back on the street and without the excuse of food, the silence feels more complicated. It’s not a date, but it’s hard to define why  _ not  _ beyond the lingering reminder that Hanzo hasn’t given him an answer yet. A hopeful part of him imagines it as a sort of audition, evidence that Jesse can be pleasant company and avoid embarrassing Hanzo. It is overpowered quickly by the cold knot in his stomach and the urge to pick apart the evening, returning to every word to analyze it, to second-guess each choice. He wonders whether Hanzo’s willingness to discuss the uncomfortable things was a step forward or a sign he somehow cares  _ less  _ what Jesse thinks now. 

They walk with enough inches between them that Jesse overthinks that too, wondering if it’s closer than Hanzo allows most people or if he’s keeping as far as possible on the crowded sidewalk as he can while still remaining polite. The press of people thins out as they near the residential district, and Hanzo’s pace slows, his chin ducking down. 

“Is there anything else?” Hanzo asks, glancing cautiously at him. “Anything you have somehow left out of your many, many revelations?”

Jesse excuses his silence by pulling a cigar out. Normally he hates to walk while he smokes, but it’s an easy way to steady himself now. “You sure now is the time?” 

“I am not sure there is a  _ good  _ time, but it is certainly better than being blindsided once more, once we are back among our colleagues.”

Jesse nods, and he has to stop walking altogether. His eyes squeeze shut as he braces himself. “There’s not a good way to say this. But our rooms, they’re— You’re right next door? So sometimes I caught your thoughts if I was in my room, too. Including when you were, uh…” He really doesn’t want to say it out loud, but the gesture he uses to explain himself probably doesn’t make anything better. 

The color drains from Hanzo’s face. His mouth opens, closes, then opens and closes again. Finally, he says tightly, “I did not think it could get worse.”

“Well, it can’t now. I hope. That’s the last of it.” Hanzo’s face is contorted into something unknowable, and it sinks claws into Jesse’s chest. 

“What is  _ wrong  _ with you?” Hanzo snaps. “You could have said something. You could have…” Instead of finishing the thought, he simply lets out a frustrated growl.

Jesse’s nerves are no longer able to handle any of it. Guilty or not, he’s tired of being treated as if he has any control over the situation. “I don’t know. I don’t have a clue what I’m doin’. I  _ know  _ I keep fuckin’ it up, but there’s not a playbook here. I’m flyin’ by the seat of my pants. Nobody can figure out what’s wrong with me, and I gotta live with the bullshit in everyone else’s head  _ and  _ knowin’ I might be the only person in the world like me. I’m worried, and I’m alone, and I’m  _ exhausted,  _ and I’m still tryin’ my best, so if you could cut me some fuckin’ slack, I—” He cuts himself off with a ragged breath, throat clenching tight enough that it aches. He scowls at the ground, and he can’t bring himself to look at Hanzo again. 

After several long puffs from the cigar, he feels steadier on his feet. “I’m sorry. That’s not all on you.”

“No, it isn’t,” Hanzo says firmly. “But I can… respect that you are in a unique position.” 

Jesse lets out a cynical laugh, but it’s the best he can hope for right now. After the tantrum he threw, it’s harder to believe it was a date, or even an audition for one. It’s hard to believe he might get anything more than this: friends, in the loosest sense of the word, and colleagues, but certainly no more dinners out.

Another minute or so passes before he stabilizes, then he takes a deep breath, holds, and releases, banishing most of the gloomy thoughts. “I know you probably didn’t agree to come tonight thinkin’ it’d just be the two of us, but I did enjoy it. You know, before…” He gestures vaguely. Hanzo’s whole body is stiff, but he nods. “And I wanted to thank you, actually. I appreciate what you’re doin’ here.” 

Hanzo’s arms cross his chest like a shield, and whatever’s going on inside him is enough that the mental barrier can barely hold it at bay. “It is no guarantee.” 

“I know, but you didn’t have to come back to this place. Doesn’t matter if it pans out, you’re still layin’ shit on the line for me. For someone who’s been puttin’ you through the wringer.” Jesse coughs, scratching at the back of his neck. “I just… if anything goes wrong tonight, I didn’t want you goin’ in without knowing I  _ am  _ grateful. For all you’re doin’ and, uh. For you, I guess.”

There’s something creeping through the cracks in Hanzo’s walls, a tentative warmth that makes Jesse’s chest ache. Hanzo actually meets his eye and holds it. His lips part, and he pauses there; Jesse holds his breath, waiting.

Then Hanzo glances quickly away. “It is getting late. We should begin preparations.”

Disappointment wracks his whole body, then he hears Baptiste’s boisterous laughter behind him. By the time he and Genji have caught up, Hanzo is already heading through the door. 

* * *

Jesse waits on the street, smoking again. It’s as good an excuse as any for why he’s loitering in the shadows, and it gives him something to do with his hands. If all goes as planned, no one will know Hanzo and Genji were there. If it goes badly, well, that’s what Jesse’s for. Reinhardt isn’t far, either, and Baptiste is on standby if things go  _ really  _ bad, but Jesse tries not to linger on that for too long.

Comms are mostly silent, and he struggles to parse what little does come through. They’ll switch to English if they need anything from the team, but getting only pieces of the story is somehow worse than hearing nothing at all. There’s an occasional thump or grunt picked up by the comm, and at one point a dry, breathy laugh that he  _ knows  _ is Hanzo’s by the way it makes something flutter in his stomach. 

The waiting makes his skin crawl, an insidious fear creeping at the back of his mind. He never feels this way when it’s his own ass on the line, but someone else’s? He can barely keep his hand from shaking. It’s been a long time since he had to wait on the sidelines while someone he cared about risked their neck on his behalf. 

In the end, it’s over as fast as their best predictions. Jesse only sees two shadowy figures slip back over the wall because he knows where to look. Even then, they’re quick enough that anyone else might think they imagined it. Hanzo comes to collect him, and Jesse would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the fine sheen of sweat or the color in his cheeks from the exertion. 

The trip back to the apartment is uneventful, but they’re all dragging their feet by the time they reach the jet. Lena, meanwhile, chatters away, well rested and highly caffeinated. The rest of them have been up too long, and the reality of it sets in once they’re safely in the Orca and shipping out. He thinks about trying to talk to Hanzo again, but he figures the time for that will come later. Maybe when they’re not in a flying tin can with no exit.

It’s a long trip even at the speeds the Orca can go. Everyone dozes at first, but then they sleep in shifts while the others mill about, restless in the enclosed space. Jesse hunkers down in the very back, as far from the others and their tired thoughts as he can get. 

There’s no avoiding  _ anyone  _ in a space this small, but that doesn’t mean he expects Hanzo to seek him out a few hours into the flight. The others are asleep, Genji’s neck craned awkwardly to rest on Baptiste’s shoulder, and Reinhardt sprawled out on his back, legs dangling far past the foot of the cot he’s on. 

Jesse is huddled under his serape, ostensibly watching a movie, although he could not tell anyone the plot beyond the last five minutes. Hanzo sinks into the seat beside him, wordlessly holding out a bag of something that looks like round rice puffs. Jesse takes one just to be polite, then he grunts at the flavor.

“’S like a marshmallow had a baby with a potato.” 

“That is not far off.” 

“I don’t know how I feel about that.” Jesse thrusts out his hand. “Gimme another one.”

Hanzo graciously shares all his treats, and when they reach the end, Jesse still isn’t certain he likes what he ate, but he can’t deny the reality of the empty bag. Without the snack to occupy their hands and mouths, the moment begins to strain again. 

“What are you doin’?” Jesse finally asks. Maybe it’s too blunt, but pussyfooting around things hasn’t done them any good either. 

“Bringing a peace offering.” 

“Shouldn’t that be my job?” 

“Does it matter?”

“Guess not,” Jesse concedes. “You doin’ alright? After going home, I mean.”

“I have visited under worse conditions.” The side of Hanzo’s mouth lifts in a quick smile. “I miss the usual fanfare.”

“That good, huh?”

“Fighting Shimada brings a special satisfaction.”

It wasn’t that long ago that he picked up Echo in the gorge; he thinks he can relate. Hanzo watches him now, eyes tracking over his face in search of God knows what. There are a lot of things Jesse could say now. At the forefront of his mind is the memory of Hanzo telling him to ask again when the mission is over. He doesn’t know if this counts as over yet. He doesn’t know if the timing would be too poor again, so soon after his outburst, after subjecting Hanzo to one more humiliation. He doesn’t know if he is prepared for another rejection, knowing he can’t get more than a few yards away if things go wrong. Recent history suggests it will almost definitely go wrong.

He thinks about the gorge again, and he smiles, mostly out of relief to have found a safe enough subject. “Did I ever tell you I was also buildin’ my own empire?” 

“Oh?”

“Wasn’t my ancestral home or anything, but it was still mine.”

“This was when you were a child?”

“Mm, didn’t take well to that suggestion at the time, but yeah, I was.” 

Hanzo settles in while Jesse rambles, explaining as much as he can stomach about Deadlock, about Ashe. How they founded the gang on the memory of a much older one. How a few well-planned, lucky heists combined with their skill with their guns let them build a reputation nobody could afford to ignore. How Ashe’s head for business and Jesse’s head for people made for one hell of a team, youth be damned. It’s funny to think back on it now, and with the man he’s telling it all to. It’s been a long time since he felt like he knew how to talk to another person, and Hanzo least of all. 

He sucks in a breath, picking at a thread in his jeans. “I’m sorry for all this. I know it’s a mess.  _ I’m  _ a mess. I only want… I don’t know.” He trails off, distracted by the clenching in his chest and the slow onset of nonsensical images in his mind, and he glances over to find Hanzo fast asleep, face tilted toward Jesse like he’s still listening. His face is relaxed, lips slightly parted. It’s unfair that he’s still so goddamn handsome. Most folks would be slackjawed and drooling, but Hanzo makes it work. 

Jesse resists the urge to fuss over him, to tuck him in or coax him into a more comfortable position. Instead he starts another movie and pulls his serape up to his chin. 

When he opens his eyes again, Lena’s gently nudging him. They’re in the hangar in Gibraltar, and everyone else has already cleared out. She shoos him away to get some real sleep. Athena’s bots and Echo can help her with the post-flight inspection; he can sense she’d rather do it without him anyway. He’d probably ask more questions than she feels like answering right now, and they’ve all been in each others’ hair long enough.

Now that he’s on his feet, he’s not sure he’s going back to sleep. The long flight confused his body’s rhythm. He tries winding down with a cigar, then by raiding Angela’s stash of chamomile tea. They help somewhat, but he’s left with the kind of restlessness that only ever seems to come in the strange, dark hours that are not yet morning but no longer night.

Back in his room, he tries to go through the motions. He brushes his teeth and changes into a soft shirt and pajama pants. He picks up the book he’s been meaning to read, but the words swim in front of his eyes, none of them quite sticking in his mind. It’s a futile exercise, and it’s only made worse by his increasing frustration with it. 

The knock at his door is quiet, tentative, the kind Jesse would give if he thought the room’s inhabitant might be asleep. He can’t sense anything through the door, either, which makes his heart trip with anticipation. It’s that last that propels him out of bed. 

Hope catches in his throat again when he finds Hanzo on the other side, looking surprised to see him like he wasn’t the one knocking. 

“Did I wake you?” Hanzo asks.

“Not at all.”

“May I…” He gestures toward the room, and Jesse steps aside to let him in. Hanzo’s eyes dart around the place, cataloguing the details so thoroughly that Jesse becomes self-conscious of the small pile of discarded clothes he left on top of his duffle bag, the teacup on the nightstand he hasn’t bothered to wash and put away yet. Nothing suggests he’s judging any of it, though. If he were anyone else, he might even be shifting his weight. He takes a deep breath, eyes closed as he steadies himself, before he focuses hard on Jesse. “Ask again.”

“Oh.” Confronted by it now, Jesse feels strangely bashful, even if the command says he should know what the answer’s going to be. He clears his throat. “Do you wanna—”

“Yes.”

Nerves get the better of him, and it comes out in a stuttering laugh. “You didn’t even let me finish.”

“Is there anything worse that you have neglected to share?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then I don’t care.” Hanzo steps closer. Jesse is rooted where he stands. “The answer is yes.”

In the following silence, Jesse thinks he can hear his own heartbeat. Hanzo looks anxious, hopeful; even his thoughts are less distant. 

Jesse is gearing up to say more, to ask him to come closer, do  _ something,  _ when Hanzo does it on his own initiative. His hand tangles in Jesse’s t-shirt, his eyes searching Jesse’s face. It’s hard to say who kisses who. It feels like he somehow knew it would, though, Hanzo’s lips as sweet as he imagined. Something shivers through the mental shield, something barely restrained, so Jesse pulls him in closer, cradling the nape of his neck with careful metal fingers.

Hanzo doesn’t need much encouragement to let go, licking eagerly into Jesse’s mouth and shoving against him until there’s no more air between their bodies. Something washes over him, sharp spikes of lust and something warmer, softer, that leaves Jesse breathless. He gasps against Hanzo’s mouth, but Hanzo’s fingers slide up his back, seizing in the fabric of his shirt and refusing to let him get away. When the fabric bunches enough that Hanzo’s hand touches skin, it’s an electric shock, and Jesse’s breath stutters again.

It won’t stop, and every touch, every kiss makes it stronger, until Jesse has Hanzo so deep in his head he’s not sure he can get him back out. The dragons are there too, purring their unearthly purr. His skin feels stretched too thin, and he can barely find his own thoughts. All Hanzo’s desire and affection crowd in and take up all the space they can find, seeping into every crack, expanding until there’s no room left for anything else.

Jesse jerks away from the onslaught with a shudder. The instant their lips stop touching, it begins to fade. “Sorry, I’m—” He has no idea what he intends to say, head still cloudy. His hand is shaking and he’s smiling at the same time.

Once he’s gathered his bearings, he tries again, kissing sweetly until the concerned twist of Hanzo’s mouth disappears, until Hanzo grows more urgent. This time his knuckles skim beneath Jesse’s shirt and along his ribs. Jesse’s skin buzzes with it, and his mind is cluttered with more than only feelings. There are sensations now too; he knows how Hanzo likes to kiss because he can sense how good it feels when Jesse’s thumb brushes just beneath his hairline, when Jesse catches his bottom lip carefully between his teeth. It’s too much input too quickly, though. His head is full to bursting, and he can’t control the shiver as Hanzo’s fingertips glide along his waist, unsure if it even feels good or bad.

When Jesse pulls away this time, Hanzo doesn’t let it drop. “Is something wrong?”

“Touching is… a lot,” he breathes when he can find his capacity for speech again. “It’s fine, I don’t wanna stop. Come here.”

They try again, Hanzo’s hands carefully cupping his hips, over his shirt this time. Hanzo doesn’t stay cautious for long, responding to Jesse’s enthusiasm by pressing into the kiss and trying to seize control. His lips are still soft, but now they’re insistent, forcing Jesse’s to part for his tongue, and Hanzo likes him so much it almost hurts to think about it was only attraction infatuation at first he was sure it would fade it hasn’t though it’s still here keeps getting worse even after everythi— 

Jesse hisses and yanks free, body overwhelmed with the warm, tingling sense of Hanzo’s feelings, mind so stuffed with them that it aches. When Hanzo instinctively reaches for him again, Jesse has to avoid the touch. It’s so unfair that it’s hard to hold back his groan. “I think my head’s gonna explode if you keep touchin’ me,” he jokes, but it lands flat. Maybe it’s true. Maybe that  _ is  _ what would happen if they kept going, if Jesse let his brain get so full of someone else that he ceases to function.

Hanzo’s hands stay off him this time, hovering uncertainly. “What is it?”

“I can pick up too much? From you.” Hanzo’s face falls, and he might go pale. Jesse reaches out to soothe him, then instantly flinches, shaking off the sensation in his hand. “It’s okay. I like it. I like  _ you. _ But I can’t handle havin’ that much of another person in my head.”

Hanzo actively chooses to believe that, rather than succumbing to the ruder things skittering along the surface of his mind. He takes a sharp breath. “That is… well, disappointing, but not the worst thing, if you—” His voice goes tight and he clears his throat. “If that is the only reason, then I am sure we can find other ways to occupy ourselves.”

“I wouldn’t be stoppin’ this for anything if I could help it.” Jesse laughs, strangely giddy despite the frustration, and he enjoys that he can feel Hanzo’s heart jump at the sound. “God, the things I wanna do to you.” Hanzo’s pulse trips again. “But I guess we oughta… find us a movie or somethin’, if you wanna stay.”

He tries to be surreptitious about adjusting himself, but Hanzo watches the movement. It’s shameless, and it’s absolutely not helping. Then dark, glittering eyes flick back up to his face. “There’s nothing stopping you from touching  _ yourself.” _

The back of Jesse’s neck prickles with heat. “I suppose that’s true, y’know, theoretically.” He can see the image of what Hanzo’s suggesting, and something electric lances through him. “Nothin’ stoppin’ you, either.”

Hanzo’s smirk is almost enough to make Jesse risk the shock of touching him again. “I suppose that’s true,” he parrots, then his eyes narrow. “Take your shirt off.”

Jesse doesn’t spend much time trying to make it look good, which he instantly regrets when he says, “Your turn,” and Hanzo takes his time. His fingers skim along his skin as he pushes the soft fabric up, revealing inch after slow inch. He has that hint of a smirk the whole time, watching to ensure Jesse’s watching right back. As if it’s possible to look away. 

“Now the pants.”

They take turns until they’re both finished, until Hanzo is at last hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear and sliding it down his thighs. God, even his cock is damn near perfect, jutting from a tidy thatch of black hair and framed by muscular thighs and the vicious angle of his hipbones. Jesse’s practically salivating, and the fact that he can’t drop to his knees and give Hanzo’s cock the worship it deserves is quite possibly the worst thing this mind-reading bullshit has done to him.

“Get on the bed,” Hanzo commands in a tone that Jesse couldn’t argue with even if he wanted to. He does as he’s told and Hanzo follows, kneeling with his legs spread wide and hands resting on his thighs. They’re not that far apart, but the distance is enough to taunt him, to remind him what he can’t have. “Touch yourself.”

Jesse sits back on his heels and wraps one hand around his cock, giving it a few slow tugs under Hanzo’s weighty gaze. A bolt of heat shoots up his spine when Hanzo does the same, thick fingers curling around his cock and sliding leisurely along its length.

Hanzo lets out a sigh as his body relaxes into the familiar touch of his own hand. His eyes grow heavier with pleasure, sliding over Jesse’s body, shameless and hungry. Jesse doesn’t notice the quirk of lips until it’s too late to brace himself. Something follows in the wake of Hanzo’s gaze, a vaguely formed sense of someone’s mouth on Jesse’s skin.

“What are you…” Jesse shudders.

Hanzo sounds way too fucking calm for what he’s doing, and more than a little smug. “I was thinking about what you said. About seeing the fantasies.” Hanzo’s thick fingers slide up his cock and back down, nice and slow; he’s appreciating Jesse’s eyes on him and playing it up. “I felt inspired.”

The impression of someone touching follows the path of Hanzo’s stare. It’s directionless at first, merely absorbing the view, exploring the skin and scars and muscle. There’s something teasing about it, testing different sensations to see what Jesse will do, tweaking one nipple until Jesse feels it pebble up on its own. His skin buzzes with goosebumps and hairs standing on end, even when it’s all in his head.

Hanzo watches every minute reaction, and for as many impressions as he sends Jesse’s way, there are pieces coming through that he doesn’t intend, too, little bursts of feeling that wash over Jesse like a warm breeze. He sees glimpses of himself again, skim gleaming and golden, with finer details jumping out. Some of them are obvious: Jesse’s face, his mouth especially, lips wet and pink and parted, his cock flushed and upright, the quiver of his abdomen when he sucks in a shuddering breath. There are other things he’s less prepared for: Hanzo’s longing when he looks at Jesse’s hair and imagines running his fingers through. The fondness when he realizes through the hair and the tan and the blush staining his skin that Jesse has freckles on his shoulders and scattered more sparsely across his chest. The sharp, spiky lust that follows when Hanzo observes the corded muscle of his forearm.

Hanzo’s gaze tracks back to his cock, which flexes under the attention, and Hanzo’s smug, heated reaction to that hits Jesse too. The feedback loop it creates is intense, forcing the pressure to build so much faster than it ought to. Hanzo himself doesn’t help. He smirks when he shoves another image at Jesse; it’s his lips, dragging over Jesse’s skin and along the length of his cock, pressing teasing, suckling kisses to the base, to the skin around, to the balls drawing up tightly below. It’s not easy for Hanzo to picture his own face, but Jesse can fill in that detail on his own.

It’s so much worse than any of their shared mornings, because it’s not only in Jesse’s head. Hanzo’s right in front of him, fiercely handsome and knowingly directing his fantasies at Jesse, showing off a body that deserves to have every inch traced with his tongue. It’s easy to fixate on any part, but Jesse gets stuck on Hanzo’s hand on his cock, standing flushed and slick at the tip at the sight of Jesse at his mercy. The sight would be enough on its own, but in combination with all the rest, it feels like a punch to the gut.

The imagined mouth is warm and wet as it closes over the head of Jesse’s cock, and Hanzo’s real mouth parts, tongue slipping out to wet the bottom lip. He’s focused, intense, and it’s all for the sake of rendering as many details as he can: slick mouth, soft lips, gentle pressure all around. It’s easy for Jesse to imagine all on his own how those sharp cheekbones would look when Hanzo’s cheeks hollow out, how messy his hair can get when Jesse can’t keep his hands to himself any more.

His hips twitch forward, fingers tightening reflexively, slippery with his own precome as they slide down the length of his cock. Hanzo bites his lip before his mouth drops open, a flush spreading far down his chest. His thighs inch apart and he sinks farther onto his heels, breaths coming faster, not quite in time with Jesse’s.

It’s too much. The heat and pressure build quickly, spurred on by the phantom sense of Hanzo’s touch, by the impression of his mouth, by the sight of him touching himself. Jesse tries to shut his eyes, but that only makes it worse; now he can see himself too, chin practically on his chest and hair in his face, lips parting on a ragged gasp, and the whole thing is accompanied by a sharp, desperate burst of need from Hanzo. Jesse comes with a grunt, spilling over his fingers and smearing along his stomach. He’s still floating, dazed, when Hanzo comes too and the wave of it hits him all over again.

The cleanup is more awkward, mostly because Jesse wants nothing more than to kiss him in the aftermath, to pull him close and pet his sweat sticky skin, but he’s already learned what a bad idea that is. He still makes himself ask, “Do you wanna stay a while?” Hanzo pauses, and Jesse takes a moment to admire that even hunting for his discarded clothes on the floor, Hanzo manages to be more attractive than awkward. “I want you to,” he adds when the silence has lingered too long.

That gets a quick smile. “Alright.”

“Sucks though. I’ll admit I’m kind of a cuddler.” 

Hanzo chuckles as he slips his tee back over his head. “Why does this not surprise me?”

Once he’s pulled his clothes back on, Hanzo eases back into the bed, careful not to touch Jesse. There’s just enough space on the mattress that they can face each other. Up close, it’s easier to see how sleepy Hanzo looks now. His thoughts feel the same, sliding slowly from one thing to the next without much rhyme or reason. Jesse can only handle it for so long before he has to lean in to kiss him again. This one is softer, without all the need, a careful, clinging press of lips.

It’s swiftly accompanied by another bubble of affection, Hanzo is happy for now which is more than he expected probably more than he deserves it doesn’t matter if it lasts if he still gets this— 

Jesse pulls away with a sigh he hopes doesn’t sound disappointed in the wrong way. He opts not to say anything about the inner monologue. Instead he braces himself and kisses him one more time, although this one is as quick as he can make it, leaving nothing but the faintest, lingering warmth.

“Like a rat,” Hanzo mumbles drowsily, mouth curving into a smile.

“What?” Rather than use his words, Hanzo shoves another thought at him: a lab rat, conditioned by pleasurable stimulation, pawing at a lever in the hopes for more, despite that it keeps shocking him. Jesse snorts. “Wow, thanks for that.”

“I am only naming the behavior.”

“Terribly sorry that I like kissin’ you. I’ll keep it to myself from now on.”

Hanzo laughs quietly, then his eyes drift open again. “Roll over. I have an idea.”

“I think I like when you have ideas.” He can feel himself smiling even as he rolls away from Hanzo, who immediately begins arranging the covers around him. “Are you tuckin’ me in? Aren’t you the sweetest?” he teases.

Hanzo yanks again, cocooning Jesse in his own sheet, then he presses in close, snuggling up without touching any skin. “You said you were a cuddler,” Hanzo mutters as he secures one arm over Jesse’s waist, sounding for all the world like it’s a chore.

“Oh, so this is only for my sake? How generous.”

“Hush.” Hanzo’s voice comes from somewhere between Jesse’s shoulder blades, where he seems to have decided it’s safest to shove his face. It’s probably best not to observe aloud that a choice that weird is hardly the behavior of someone who only cuddles reluctantly. It’s much easier for Jesse to keep his mouth shut, and to put off thinking about what any of this means until after he’s gotten some sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Jesse doesn’t know what he expected, but he is pretty sure the collection is a researcher’s wet dream. There are thousands of files, digitized versions of texts dating back centuries, with firsthand chronicles of the family and their dragons. Some are no more than diary entries, while others are written by people who are practically historians in their own right, interested in more than the inner workings of the family — there is information about crops, weather patterns and politics, and every conflict, internal and external, that Japan has mired itself in since the sixteenth century. There are dozens of philosophical treatises on the nature of the dragons themselves, speculation on how they work, even scientific investigations of varying degrees of sophistication, and rarely do any of them agree.

They are also, with few exceptions, fucking boring. 

Either it’s not translating well, or most of the Shimada who bothered to write this stuff down were less than poetic about it. Angela rubs her eyes. She’s too polite to say it out loud, but she’s thinking the same. Somehow, most of Hanzo and Genji’s ancestors managed to turn actual _spirit dragons_ into something so painfully dry that even a medical researcher can’t keep her eyes from glazing over. 

“Don’t know why I’m readin’ this guy,” Jesse mutters just to break the silence. His most recent selection is one of the diaries, an elaborately detailed account of one Shimada Hiroto’s day-to-day activities. “Shocked he hasn’t recorded his bowel movements. Why does he think anyone _cares?”_

Hanzo smirks from across the table. “You expect a man chosen by spirit dragons to be humble?”

“I expect him to only share the important bits.”

“Ah, how dare he fail to predict your individual needs.” 

Jesse feels his lips purse, a snarky remark on the tip of his tongue and his neck burning from Hanzo’s unique ability to get under his skin in multiple ways at once. Angela interrupts before he can come up with a smart reply. “We’re lucky so much of the history is recorded at all.” She mumbles something about the connection between historic literacy rates and ill-gotten wealth, but Jesse is distracted by the sudden, muted sensation of a hand creeping up his thigh. 

Hanzo’s arms aren’t that long, but his mind _is_ that good at conjuring up and projecting distracting bullshit whenever he pleases. Jesse jumps when the imagined hand reaches too high, and Hanzo’s mouth twitches. 

Angela glares at them both. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Jesse rushes to say, in a voice that sounds exactly as guilty as Hanzo should feel. 

Her nose wrinkles, and she stands abruptly. “You’re being weird,” she accuses as if they’re seventeen again. _“Both_ of you. I’m going for lunch.”

Baptiste looks up from the far end of the table, where he’s reclined in a chair absolutely not meant for reclining. It creaks when he shifts his weight, peering over the tablet at Angela as she leaves, then turning that same curiosity toward Jesse. “Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not,” he says honestly, rubbing a hand across his brow. Hanzo, meanwhile, is doing an almost-convincing impression of someone captivated by his reading material. 

* * *

He doesn’t think much of the interaction until his usual checkup with Angela begins with an unusual statement: “So you slept with him.”

“I didn’t sleep with anybody,” Jesse says, grouchier than he means to. 

Her eyes narrow. “Well, _something_ happened.” One hand flails. “You were… playing footsie with your brains or something.”

“That isn’t—” As stupid as it sounds, she is one hundred percent correct. Jesse’s mouth shuts without finishing the thought. 

“While we were trying to work. To help _you,_ by the way.” 

“I didn’t have sex with Hanzo,” he starts again. 

“I have working eyes, Jesse.” The buzz of noise from her mind is louder now, and her irritation makes more sense: she thinks he’s lying to her. 

“I _didn’t._ I mean, we— not exactly.” He scrubs a hand over his face. He has been debating the wisdom of broaching the subject as it is, although he would have liked more control over the approach. “I can’t,” he says, muffled into his palm. 

Angela runs out of steam, no longer annoyed by his supposed lies now that there’s a hint she should veer back to doctor mode. “What do you mean, ‘can’t’?” More slowly, she asks, “Are you struggling to maintain an—”

_“No.”_

“There’s no shame in it. You are under a great deal of stress lately.”

“My dick is workin’ fine.” She pulls an unprofessional face. “You asked! But no, it’s touching? You know I get more thoughts when I touch somebody, but I guess the effect is... it adds up?”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, I just… yes, we kissed, but it was weird as shit, Angie. Like the longer it went on, the more space he took up and the louder he got, until I could barely hear my _own_ thoughts.”

“How long did it persist?”

“I don’t know. We stopped. It hurt after a couple minutes.”

“It hurt?” She sounds alarmed now. 

“It felt dangerous? To keep going?”

Her eyebrows have climbed practically to her hairline. She remembers to write it down only after a moment of staring. “That is fascinating. I don’t know how to alleviate that, but I recommend, um, not doing the thing that hurts.”

Jesse snorts. “Thanks, doc.”

“I can suggest some alternative approaches, though.”

He feels his face go hot, and his stomach sinks in anticipation. “What?” 

“There are a wide variety of barriers you can use,” she begins. 

“I know how to use a condom.”

“Well, there are those, but you might also consider a sex dam or—”

“Oh my god, Angie. Please.”

“As your doctor, I should be thorough. Perhaps through a wall?”

“You’re not prescribing me a fuckin’ _glory hole.”_

“You could also consider—”

“You gonna tell me to cut a hole in a sheet too, like some weird religious thing?”

“That isn’t a real thing. Well, maybe as a kink, but not as a religious practice. But if you think it would help!” Her face is bright with a perky, helpful smile. She even goes so far as to bat her eyes at him.

“You’re enjoyin’ this,” he grumbles. 

“Immensely.” The smile transforms into a much more honest smirk. “But really, we should at least make a note of the, uh, cumulative effects of touch, I think. Do you think it would work the same if it were someone else?”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

Angie might be a professional, but when Jesse is around, some part of her is always going to be the teenager she was when they met. She rolls her eyes. “Well, _I_ can touch you. Not like that, of course.” She’s already removing her gloves. “Well?”

“Fine,” he grouses. 

Her cool fingers span as much of his bare forearm as they are able. Suddenly the buzz of her mind is louder. He can hear snatches of what she’s writing and the strange cloud of noise that he has learned to recognize as scattered thoughts not yet formed into words. The ticking of the clock in the office grows louder as it comes in surround sound, and there is a low hum of concern underpinning the whole affair, she wants to know if the touch thing can be resolved for all her teasing she can’t imagine a life of limited touch even the most distant person needs it sometimes and Jesse has always been more tactile with his affections it must be very hard on him—

He yanks his arm back as his head starts to feel too full, shaking his hand as if that will make the tingling sensation go away. Immediately, the noise of Angie in his head fades, and he feels like his mind is his own again. Neither of them mentions the turn her thoughts took. 

“Can you describe it now?” Angie asks.

“Same thing happened. A little less intense, but maybe that’s because we weren’t kissing.” She has something pinched between her brows, so he tacks on, “If you wanna try that again...”

“We agreed never to discuss that.” The wrinkle between her brows is gone, though, so at least it distracted her from her worries. “I think we have at least confirmed it is replicable, and that the act itself matters, not only the person. That could be useful. Is anything different?”

“Between you and me, no, but between you and him, maybe? It didn’t hurt with you, but it didn’t last as long. Um. And I don’t feel you more than I would other people.” She raises her eyebrows, but she is patient enough this time that she doesn’t prompt. “Ever since me and Hanzo...” Jesse waves a hand rather than provide further details. “Since he crawled in my head, he’s so much louder than everyone else. You know, if thoughts take up space, he’s takin’ more than his fair share.”

“Are you telling me that your boyfriend is… mentally manspreading?”

Jesse rubs a hand over his face, and he wonders how long he has to stay. “Not sure we’re at ‘boyfriend’ yet,” he mutters. Angela gives him one of those annoyed, skeptical looks, but at least she treats the rest of the visit like a normal checkup.

* * *

They haven’t discussed it exactly. It happened once. 

He knows Hanzo wants more than sex, which is a nice thing to be certain of. He knows they both liked what they did, however frustrating it was to work around Jesse’s limitations. He knows he liked waking up in somebody’s arms for the first time in a long time, liked rolling into the warm spot Hanzo left behind when he rose to get ready for his day. Liked watching Hanzo tug his sleep-mussed hair into place, liked the sudden mischievous tilt of his smile before he smothered Jesse in the sheet to kiss his face safely through the fabric. Jesse doesn’t think anybody else here has seen Hanzo smile quite like that. But _boyfriend_ might be taking it too far for some flirting and feelings and one night of creative sexual problem solving. 

The word bounces around his skull, a single thought to preoccupy him and push out the noise of the other agents on base. It isn’t the label so much. He can take or leave that. It’s the lingering question, the strange doubt that remains despite all that he has gathered from Hanzo’s thoughts. 

If anyone asked him before now what he thought mind-reading would be like, he’s sure he would have thought about it more literally: thoughts processed in linear fashion, tidy and coherent with their meanings far clearer than the spoken word. It’s not _not_ true, but it’s a lot more fucking complicated than that, and as many easy answers as it can provide, it leaves a lot of lingering questions. 

He’s still busy navel-gazing when Hanzo knocks on his door in the evening. Jesse doesn’t pick up the dragons first or even the hum of Hanzo’s thoughts, not consciously. The knowledge kicks him in the gut instead, the way he knows how to reach for Deadeye or knows when to press an advantage versus running like hell from a fight. 

Hanzo’s entry into his room is less tentative than the last time, but it’s no less curious. His eyes seem to flick over everything, leaving Jesse grateful he had the presence of mind to tidy up today. It’s a look Jesse’s known most his life, familiar among career criminals and soldiers and mercs alike — Hanzo is still learning the territory, cataloguing the ins and outs and potential threats. If he’s aware he’s doing it, his mind doesn’t give it away; it’s more likely that it’s pure instinct, baked into the bone at this point. 

His gaze lands on Jesse’s desk. The twitch of his lips is sexier than it has any right to be, given what he’s staring at. “Did you cut yourself?” 

“No? Oh god, no, I need to throw those away.” 

Jesse reaches for the box, but Hanzo beats him to it. He’s cottoned on that _something_ is off here, and it seems he’s going to milk it for entertainment. “Dare I ask?” He doesn’t bother looking for permission; he simply pulls open the box and begins to slide a tiny latex tube over his index finger. He follows it immediately with another. 

Jesse’s gut writhes with discomfort. “Angie might’ve figured us out.”

“And she gave you… finger condoms?” Hanzo wiggles his fingers, then he goes back to his task until he’s covered every one on his right hand. He won’t stop smirking, and he’s not even bothering to shield Jesse from the brunt of his amusement. 

“Could you— that’s so distracting.” Hanzo waggles his fingers again. It’s mortifying, but staring at his hands keeps doing weird things to Jesse’s insides. They aren’t wholly bad, and that might be worse. “She’s just tryin’ to help. Or fuck with me. Or both. Seriously, it’s weird, please quit.”

Hanzo snickers, and if Jesse weren’t so distraught, he might be delighted to realize this is Hanzo behaving in a way nobody else gets to see. At least, he assumes Mei and Genji have never seen Hanzo wearing a bunch of finger cots. He still doesn’t take them off, but he thankfully doesn’t start on the other hand, either. 

Instead he picks up another box. “Kofferdam?” he mutters. “Oh, I see. Erdbeere is… berry?”

“Strawberry,” Jesse says through his hands. 

“I like strawberries.” Jesse wants to sink into the floor. When he glances up again, Hanzo has stopped his torture and has a strange smile on his face, unreadable even with Jesse’s advantage. “I was so sure you were an adult man,” Hanzo teases. “Is this an American thing?”

“It’s not— Okay, probably a little. Joke all you want, you can’t tell me it’s not _weird_ that Angie sent me packin’ from the medbay with all this.”

“I think it is kind of your friend to try to help. Or fuck with you, helpfully.” 

“You’re not bothered she knows?” Hanzo does pause there. His mind is carefully muted. “I mean, I didn’t tell her, she figured it out on her own. Not that I _wouldn’t_ tell her. It’s not like that. I just know you’re a private—”

Hanzo’s lips against his are warm, and he tastes the tiniest bit like sugar, because Lena caught him in the kitchen and forced him to try one of her bland excuses for cookies— He’s gone again. It was too quick to start hurting, but it was enough to shut Jesse up. “It is alright.”

“Okay.” 

Things are quiet for a moment while Jesse absorbs it, mind racing with more questions he might ask. Before he can settle on one, Hanzo picks up the last box. Like the others, he pries it open without asking. Jesse watches, unable to speak, while Hanzo peels each of the latex tubes from his fingers only to wriggle his hand into a full glove. He raises an eyebrow and snaps the latex around his wrist, smirking like he knows what effect his weird shit is having. “I think we can work with this.” 

Whatever questions or concerns Jesse had before, they’re banished now. “You might be right,” he says, throat suddenly tight. 

The strawberry flavor is intolerable, but the gloves work out alright if they’re careful. One out of three ain’t so bad.

* * *

Jesse’s morning routine changes. Sometimes he wakes alone, but other mornings, it’s to Hanzo rolling out of bed. Sometimes he wakes earlier, because Hanzo’s carefully constructed sheet cocoon doesn’t always survive the night, and Jesse’s brain will suddenly flood with sheer nonsense. Occasionally he’ll catch a snatch of semi-coherent dream, but mostly he gets the effects of Hanzo’s mental lint trap emptying in his sleep. It wakes him up every time; even asleep, his mind can’t take the crowding. Hanzo wakes too, a guilty thread rising from his drowsy mind, but then he adjusts them both and falls asleep again quickly.

When Jesse wakes in an especially good mood, which is most of the mornings he wakes up next to Hanzo, he’ll sing mumbled snatches of the Hasselhoff songs he can hear. That usually runs Hanzo off, which is fine, because there’s not enough space in Jesse’s room to get ready for the day without bumping into each other.

Then there’s breakfast, the shooting range, a meeting if they’re going to have one. They run simulations and close quarters combat training after lunch. Late afternoons are for reading through the old files, which reveal very little. Hanzo’s guilt usually spikes again; he thinks he’s wasting Jesse’s time, distracting everyone from finding the real solution. 

It’s much more fun when Hanzo chooses to distract only Jesse, usually with some creative image or another thrown his way when he’s least expecting it. There is almost always someone else present, which means Jesse’s developed a persistent cough to hide his reaction. If there was one way he would want this power to adapt again, it’d be so he could retaliate. Instead, he’s left floundering in front of an audience. His vengeance usually comes later, in the form of text messages or the words he growls from a few feet away while he’s watching Hanzo get himself off. That’s all private, though. Hanzo still has the edge when they’re around other people. 

Jesse’s sitting in their makeshift study hall, trying to ignore the projected pictures of exactly what Hanzo would like to do on this table. He is supposed to be reading this latest entry about strange weather patterns in 1852, but Hanzo must be as bored as he is, given how elaborate the images in Jesse’s head have gotten. He can _feel_ Hanzo’s eyes on him, watching for him to react, which would be distracting even without the thoughts.

Jesse finally gives in and squirms in his seat, then Mei’s voice interrupts it all. “I think I found something.”

The sensation of hands digging into his sides dissipates as Hanzo’s attention shifts. “What is it?”

“You said there were ways to… cut off the dragons? I think this is describing the ritual.”

Jesse navigates to the file she describes, and he begins to read. _We lay the traitor on her back. She fought the restraints until the medicine took hold._ “They drugged her?”

“So it would seem,” Hanzo says, eyes rapidly scanning his own tablet. 

“They do that when you get ’em too?”

“No.” Hanzo’s mouth is tight, worry pushing past the shield he hastily tries to slam into place. “Perhaps they were only preventing her from summoning hers. It is difficult to do with a clouded mind.” Something skitters out and away again that Jesse doesn’t think he’s supposed to see, the briefest flash of a memory. He’s left with the nauseating impression that the family drugged Hanzo and Genji as part of their training, in order to teach them to combat this weakness. “Or perhaps they know it will hurt.”

Mei bites her lip. Her tone is kind but determined to find the truth when she asks, “Doesn’t _getting_ the dragons hurt?”

“Yes.” Hanzo inhales purposefully, then he lets it out again. “It is more than a simple tattoo,” he says, when what he means is that it hurts more than anything he’s ever felt. Jesse knows it from Genji’s stories, and he senses it now from the flicker of Hanzo’s thoughts he _can_ read. 

Mei is paler than before too; she doesn’t need telepathy to hear what isn’t being said. “So if _this_ requires something to ease the pain…”

“Yes,” Hanzo says again. This time he looks at Jesse, and he isn’t so quick to try to muffle the concern. “Then this would be agonizing.” 

“Well, thank God for modern medicine, huh?” Jesse jokes.

“She is awake in this account. Without knowing whether that is necessary for the ritual…” The sound Mei makes is unsatisfied.

Jesse clears his throat, and he keeps reading. She _is_ awake, if apparently totally out of it. Whatever they drugged her with, the account says she’s raving, delirious with the pain or the narcotics or whatever they’re doing to her. “It sounds like an exorcism.” His laugh is small, nervous-sounding even to his ears. 

“Perhaps that is exactly what it is,” Hanzo murmurs. “I didn’t… remember reading it quite like this before. I didn’t think…” Whatever he’s going to say, he shakes it off. Louder, he says, “It is your decision, but… I am not convinced this should be anything but a last resort.”

“Why? ’Cause it’s probably gonna hurt?”

“‘Hurt’,” Hanzo scoffs. They’re all reading the same thing; they all know what an understatement it is. “You do not even have a dragon to sever ties with. There is no telling if it will _work.”_

Mei clears her throat, gaze flicking from Jesse to Hanzo and back. “Regardless, there is time to consider it. We need to do _much_ more research into this before we even begin to reconstruct it.” 

Jesse nods, and that’s the end of the conversation. They copy this account to a new collection, though, the first of those set aside for their purposes. The nightmares Jesse has about it are entirely his own at first, but he wakes in the middle of the night to even more of them, transferred by the tip of Hanzo’s nose brushing the bared back of his neck.

* * *

As the days pass, and as Jesse continues to risk more kisses or simple touches that eventually repel him, reality begins to sink in. 

Angela was right. He’s always been tactile with his lovers. 

It isn’t only sex. There’s comfort in touch, affection, a simple reminder that they’re both real and solid. He wants to run his fingers through Hanzo’s hair. He wants to memorize the feel of him — the slick, bumpy, ragged feeling of scars, the soft, thin skin inside his elbows or between his thighs, the prickle of the sparse hair below his navel. He wants to be able to squeeze Hanzo’s hand in the one that feels warm and alive. 

There’s a thin tendril of guilty dissatisfaction that rises off Hanzo from time to time. He’s honest about it, at least, and he’s creative about working around it, but it still does little to alleviate Jesse’s frustration. This is surely some limitation he should be able to overcome. 

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” he asks when he has finally had enough of talking _around_ it. They’re outside watching the sun slowly creep beneath the waves. A thin curl of smoke wafts away from Jesse’s cigar. “Bein’ with someone you can’t touch?” 

“If _touching_ were my sole concern, this would not have been so difficult in the first place.” Hanzo gives him a thin smile.

“But still, you—”

“Is it me that you don’t trust, or is it people in general?” 

Jesse’s mouth snaps shut. He glances to the side, away from Hanzo’s level gaze. He scratches the back of his neck. “I know it’s not what you signed up for.”

“What did I sign up for, O, Omniscient One?” His tone is dry as the desert. 

Jesse laughs and tips his head back, resting against the dusty metal wall. “It’d be one thing if I didn’t want it and you did, but it’s different when we _both_ do and I just… can’t.” 

“Yes. They are distinct problems with different compromises required to solve them.” There’s a hum beneath Jesse’s skin as Hanzo’s fingers brush his, plucking the cigar away. “It is not a given that either of these leads to an ending, though.” 

Jesse finally looks at him again, watching him wrap his lips around the end of the cigar. Hanzo’s not as good at maintaining the barrier now that he’s let down his guard, although he still tries sometimes. There’s a frisson of fear he’s trying to suppress. Worry that Jesse keeps talking about it because _he’s_ the one having second thoughts. 

Jesse sighs, then he bumps Hanzo’s shoulder with his own, reaching out to rest a hand carefully above Hanzo’s knee, curling softly into the fabric of his pants. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am.” Then Hanzo grins, casting a sly look Jesse’s way. “Besides. It has its perks.”

An idea slips into Jesse’s mind, Hanzo on his knees with Jesse straddling his lap, facing out toward the water, hands slipping over his sweaty skin as Hanzo drives up and into him until he wants to go boneless, until he can barely keep up to do his part, wanting only to sag backward and let Hanzo hold him up, guiding—

“Jesus,” Jesse mutters, shifting his weight. Hanzo glances down at his lap, smirking until Jesse has to adjust himself. “Rude as hell.” 

Hanzo hums to himself, so damn smug. “I thought you liked my ideas.”

“Pretty sure you can see that I do.” Hanzo doesn’t quite snicker. “Still rude to do that when I’m worryin’ I’m gonna have to use a dental dam just to kiss my boyfriend.” His whole face goes hotter, and he shoots Hanzo a panicked look. “Uh, I guess we haven’t…”

Hanzo’s only laughing, though, completely unbothered by the b-word so soon into this new thing. “You are right that it is not easy, but you are wrong if you believe that changes my intentions. You of all people should be able to see that.” He looks at Jesse then, really looks, and Jesse catches another vision of himself: his heavy-lidded eyes and the way his eyelashes go blond at the tips, just visible in the setting sunlight, his wide mouth and slightly chapped lips, his ruddy skin with the faint freckles across his once-broken nose. His hair’s stringier than it ought to be too, in desperate need of a trim, and rumpled from running his hands through it all day. 

Jesse is reminded of the first time he realized how Hanzo saw him. This is nothing like before; he looks a lot more weathered and a lot less shiny this time, a lot more like the man he sees in the mirror every day. He sucks in air through his teeth, chest suddenly too tight to breathe, and he does his best to believe Hanzo’s words and his smile, to banish the thousands of questions that batter him.

“Yeah,” he says tightly. “You’re right, nothin’ to worry about with you, huh?” Hanzo smiles as if he has no idea what Jesse saw, or as if he believes it was perfectly clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Canada (the B.C. CDC, specifically) for inspiring me by [actually prescribing glory holes](https://globalnews.ca/news/7204384/coronavirus-glory-holes-sex/).

**Author's Note:**

> This fic now has an official playlist. It's terrible, but it's nice that it exists. Find it [here on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2QGI57XLIS7NwAKQE934RP?si=apwi2HKuRBKfkhnGuI5Bhg).


End file.
